Unconfirmed

Mike Winkelmann, the digital artist also known as Beeple who has made an artwork every day for over 13 years, talks about the NFT auctions he held last weekend, after learning about crypto two months ago. In the show, he discusses:

• how he got into crypto two months ago, and made $3.5 million in NFT auctions last weekend
• how the objects on sale were more than just jpegs and what physical objects came with the NFTs
• what types of auctions he had, and why some pieces were available for $1 apiece
• how he previously made money as a digital artist
• how he believes digital artists will be able to make money in the future
• why people would pay to own an NFT if they can just get a digital file of the art
• why he incorporated physical objects into his sale
• whether or not this model would work for artists with smaller followings than he has, with his 1.7 million Instagram followers
• what his relationship was with the collector who paid $777,777 for the final piece sold in the auction
• why he chose Nifty Gateway among all the NFT sites
• how NFTs could also change business models for other types of creators besides visual artists

Thank you to our sponsors!

Blocknative: Blocknative.com/unconfirmed 

Crypto.com: http://crypto.com

Episode links:

Mike Winkelmann: https://twitter.com/beeple

Video for auction: https://www.instagram.com/p/CIlNe6MAwVX/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

Instagram video showing the digital art displays: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CIrMctwgfJ1/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Coverage of auctions: 

https://www.delphidigital.io/reports/beeple-shatters-crypto-art-records-across-the-board/

https://cryptobriefing.com/digital-art-auction-raises-record-million/

https://decrypt.co/51270/beeple-nft-sale

https://twitter.com/niftygateway/status/1338268375156482050?s=20

Rapper Lil Yachty's NFT sale: https://www.coindesk.com/lil-yachty-collectible-fetches-16k-in-latest-string-of-high-profile-nft-auctions

Link to the Crypto News Recap:

https://unchainedpodcast.com/3-btc-price-targets/

Rohan Grey, assistant professor at Willamette Law, talks about the STABLE Act, which would require stable coin issuers to obtain a banking charter, require approval from the Federal Reserve and require issuers to have FDIC insurance. In this episode, Grey, an advisor to the bill, discusses:

• how the past history of financial innovation and events that have posed systemic risks necessitates the STABLE Act
• how he, not being a staff member of Congress, became involved in the bill 
• how the bill would prevent stablecoin issuers from committing crimes that banks have perpetrated by requiring them to become banks
• why he believes open source smart contracts enforcing rules and public audit-able blockchains are not a fundamentally new way to prevent the type of events that pose systemic risks that the STABLE Act aims to prevent
• why existing regulatory and licensing regimes are insufficient
• how he would answer people from countries like Argentina who have had their currency devalued by their government the STABLE Act, and who might say this bill exposes them to a different type of risk
• how much the rollout of Facebook's Diem, as opposed to existing stablecoins such as Tether, USDC or Dai, was a motivation for this bill
• whether, by focusing narrowly on systemic risk, this bill could squash crypto and fintech innovation that could help the un- and under-banked
• whether he sees any path forward for this bill to be passed

Thank you to our sponsors!

Crypto.com: http://crypto.com

Blocknative: https://www.blocknative.com/unconfirmed

Episode links:

Rohan Grey: https://twitter.com/rohangrey

STABLE Act: https://tlaib.house.gov/media/press-releases/tlaib-garcia-and-lynch-stableact 

Introduction of bill: 

https://www.coindesk.com/us-lawmakers-introduce-bill-that-would-require-stablecoin-issuers-to-obtain-bank-charters

Implications of the bill for running an Ethereum node:

https://www.coindesk.com/stable-act-ethereum-node-illegal

https://www.coincenter.org/the-unintended-consequences-of-the-stable-act/

https://www.coindesk.com/stable-act-ethereum-node-illegal

Rohan Grey and Jeremy Allaire interviews on The Block Live: https://www.pscp.tv/w/1OwxWVgmqyMJQ

Unchained interview with acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks: https://unchainedpodcast.com/acting-comptroller-of-the-currency-brian-brooks-on-crypto-banks/

Link to the Crypto News Recap:

https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-mass-mutuals-btc-buy-is-so-significant/

James Slazas, founder and CEO of LiquidStake and DARMA Capital, describes their retail and institutional offerings for customers who want to stake on Ethereum 2.0 but still access the locked-up capital. In this episode, we discuss: 

• what problem LiquidStake solves and how 
• what happens if the dollar value of someone’s stake drops below the amount that they’ve borrowed
• who keeps the ETH in a liquidation 
• how LiquidStake makes money 
• how they determine the price of ETH to make the loan and what it does in the event of a flash crash on an exchange
• how LiquidStake and DARMA Capital are also serving institutional clients
• how total return swap agreements with DARMA work 
• why they offer more tax and regulatory clarity
• why LiquidStake currently offers USDC for its stablecoin
• the pros and cons of a centralized loans on staked ETH 2 over decentralized ones 
• the other crypto systems LiquidStake is partnering with
• how LiquidStake and DARMA Capital are able to make these loans from a regulatory perspective

Thank you to our sponsor!

Crypto.com: http://crypto.com/

Episode links:

James Slazas: https://twitter.com/DARMA_Slazas

Liquidstake: https://liquidstake.com

DARMA Capital: https://darma.capital

LiquidStake announcements: https://www.coindesk.com/ethereum-heavyweights-launch-liquidstake-loans-to-ease-eth-2-0-lockup

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/84277/eth2-liquidstake-borrow-eth-validators

LiquidStake blog post: https://liquidstake.com/blog/1

Link to the Crypto News Recap:

https://unchainedpodcast.com/this-is-pushing-up-the-price-of-bitcoin/

This episode is a discussion from Stellar's Meridian conference, in which I moderated the panel, Crypto on Every Corner: Driving Adoption, featuring Jeremy Allaire, cofounder, chairman and CEO of Circle, and Meltem Demirors, chief strategy officer at CoinShares. In this discussion, we cover:

• what adoption means and looks like 
• why cryptocurrency is at a particularly interesting inflection point
• how central bank digital currencies could affect that
• how blockchains will recede into the background
• how existing fintech payment apps will use blockchains and/or crypto
• where on the road to adoption the industry currently is 
• the significance of Crypto Twitter as a marketing tool
• what the crypto industry needs to do in the next year to grow the industry
• why it would have been easier to start a bank than a crypto business
• why the separation of money and state is one of the most interesting experiments in history 
• how we'll see new corporate-like organizations without any connections to any existing legal or financial systems driven by tokens
• what their favorite crypto adoption success story is

Thank you to our sponsors!

Crypto.com: http://crypto.com

Episode links:

Jeremy Allaire: https://twitter.com/jerallaire

Circle: https://www.circle.com/en/

Meltem Demirors: https://twitter.com/Melt_Dem

Coinshares: https://coinshares.com

PayPal offering crypto: https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/12/paypal-says-all-users-in-u-s-can-now-buy-hold-and-sell-cryptocurrencies/

Revolut offering crypto: https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/15/revolut-partners-with-paxos-to-bring-cryptocurrency-trading-to-the-us/

Nic Carter, general partner at Castle Island Ventures, and cofounder and chairman of Coin Metrics, explains  why the Bitcoin price has been rising without the retail bubble seen in 2017-2018. In this episode he covers:

• how this Bitcoin rally differs from the ones in 2017-2018 and why the market is much more mature
• how much the pandemic and other macro forces this year have helped propel Bitcoin
• what it says that the number of Bitcoin addresses with $10 or more worth of bitcoin are is at 18 million now, compared to 2014 in the 2017-2018 bubble
• the significance of realized cap, and why there's less pressure to sell now since the current cost basis of all bitcoins is much higher than in the bubble
• the significance of the fact that open interest in CME Bitcoin futures hit $1 billion this week — and why, even though they're cash-settled, they do impact the Bitcoin price
• what the appreciation of the Bitcoin price in other countries' currencies such as Turkish lira means
• what it means that the stablecoin free float has grown from $1.5 billion in the last bubble to $23 billion during this rally
• what he makes of the theory that Chinese miners are having difficulty to sell their BTC being a driver of the price rise

Thank you to our sponsor!

Crypto.com: http://crypto.com

Episode links:

Nic Carter: https://twitter.com/nic__carter

Castle Island VC: https://www.castleisland.vc

Coin Metrics: https://coinmetrics.io 

Nic’s post: https://medium.com/@nic__carter/nine-bitcoin-charts-already-at-all-time-highs-78abbfe82804

Chinese miners unable to sell BTC: https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-rally-supply-crunch-in-china 

Dispute with this report: https://twitter.com/WuBlockchain/status/1328893579515682816?s=20

CME Bitcoin open futures surpasses $1 billion: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/85045/cme-bitcoin-futures-1-billion-open-interest

Link to the Crypto News Recap:

https://unchainedpodcast.com/what-info-will-come-out-in-the-binance-lawsuit/

Paxos CEO and cofounder Chad Cascarilla discusses his company's partnership with PayPal, which just opened up its crypto purchase and selling product to all its US customers. In this episode, he covers:

• how Paxos enables PayPal's crypto product
• the regulatory steps Paxos took to make this happen
• why $200 billion company like PayPal would partner with a small company like Paxos
• how Paxos Crypto Brokerage works 
• how Paxos provides the regulatory cover that PayPal needs for this offering, along with custodial and liquidity services
• why this product sources its coins on Paxos's ItBit exchange
• how the four crypto assets available on PayPal — bitcoin, ether, litecoin and bitcoin cash — were chosen
• what other tokens one might expect to be offered through Paxos Crypto Brokerage, and possibly by extension by PayPal
• how PayPal gets around the scaling issues on Bitcoin and Ethereum
• whether Paxos's stablecoin business might be used by PayPal
• if PayPal does acquire BitGo, what that would mean for Paxos offering custody for PayPal through its brokerage
• how Paxos's equity settlement platform is going, and where it could go over time
• how and why Paxos is applying to the SEC to become one of three clearing agents 

Thank you to our sponsor!

Crypto.com: http://crypto.com

Episode links:

Chad Cascarilla: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlescascarilla/

Paxos: https://www.paxos.com

PayPal now offers crypto purchases to all its customers: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/84398/paypal-opening-up-app-crypto-users

Original announcements about PayPal offering crypto purchases with Paxos: https://www.coindesk.com/paypal-new-york-conditional-bitlicense-paxos-cryptocurrency 

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/81794/paypal-to-enable-crypto-purchases-with-the-help-of-paxos

Paxos announcement: https://www.paxos.com/paypal-paxos-bring-crypto-to-millions-of-users/

Paxos Crypto Brokerage: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/paxos-introduces-paxos-crypto-brokerage-service-to-power-digital-asset-buying-and-selling-in-any-product-301093761.html

PayPal approved for conditional BitLicense: https://www.dfs.ny.gov/reports_and_publications/press_releases/pr202010211

Paxos’s stablecoin business: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/genesis/54254/a-deep-dive-into-the-paxos-stablecoin-ecosystem

PayPal rumored to be in talks to acquire BitGo: https://www.coindesk.com/paypal-said-to-be-in-talks-to-buy-crypto-firms-including-bitgo-bloomberg

Paxos working with Revolut: https://www.coindesk.com/uk-fintech-firm-revolut-brings-bitcoin-ether-trading-to-us-customers

Paxos equity settlement business: https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/56494/paxos-equity-settlement-business-goes-live-with-credit-suisse-and-nomuras-instinet-as-first-clients

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/44901/paxos-looking-to-upend-a-massive-corner-of-wall-street-credit-suisse-on-board-for-pilot

Link to the Crypto News Recap:

https://unchainedpodcast.com/1st-paxos-interview-since-paypal-news/

Kristin Smith, executive director of the Blockchain Association and a board member of HODLpac, discusses how advocating for crypto will change under what is likely to be a new presidential administration. In this episode she talks about:

• what crypto advocacy typically entails
• how the approach will change under a Biden administration compared to what it was under Trump
• what appointments by Biden could most affect the crypto industry
• which issues are at the top of the agendas for both the Blockchain Association and HODLpac
• why regulators are particularly interested in stablecoins
• how a potentially Democratic-controlled Senate under a Biden administration might affect crypto
• what she's watching for from Cynthia Lummis, a Bitcoiner who won her Wyoming Senate race
• how anti-trust sentiment in Congress could affect crypto, and whether legislators see Web3 as an antidote to monopoly problems
• the divisions within the crypto industry around how to approach regulators, and how to resolve them
• the potential for a de minimus tax exemption, in light of PayPal integrating cryptocurrencies
• and how HODLpac used quadratic voting to decide which candidates to support

Thank you to our sponsor!

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com/

Episode links:

Kristin Smith: https://twitter.com/KMSmithDC

Blockchain Association: https://theblockchainassociation.org

HODLpac: https://www.hodlpac.org

Interview with acting Comptroller of the Currency, Brian Brooks: https://unchainedpodcast.com/acting-comptroller-of-the-currency-brian-brooks-on-crypto-banks/

Likely second runoff election in Georgia to determine control of Senate: https://twitter.com/bluestein/status/1324360112190951424?s=20

Cynthia Lummis to become first US Senator who is also a Bitcoiner https://fortune.com/2020/11/04/wyoming-bitcoin-cynthia-lummis-u-s-senate/

Brad Sherman wanting to ban cryptocurrency: https://www.coindesk.com/congressmans-call-for-crypto-ban-sparks-social-uproar

Leaked Binance doc about whether Binance.US is a decoy: https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldelcastillo/2020/10/29/leaked-tai-chi-document-reveals-binances-elaborate-scheme-to-evade-bitcoin-regulators/?sh=1d759bd2a926

More on quadratic voting: https://unchainedpodcast.com/how-blockchains-can-help-create-little-democracies-everywhere/

Link to the Crypto News Recap:

https://unchainedpodcast.com/what-a-potential-biden-administration-could-mean-for-crypto/

Matt Hougan, chief investment officer of Bitwise Asset Management, discusses a milestone Bitwise reached this week -- hitting $100 million in assets under management. He also covered

Thank you to our sponsor!

Crypto.com: http://crypto.com

Episode links:

Matt Hougan: https://twitter.com/Matt_Hougan

Bitwise: https://www.bitwiseinvestments.com

Bitwise reaches $100 million in AUM: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bitwise-surpasses-100-million-in-assets-under-management-due-to-rising-demand-for-crypto-from-hedge-funds-and-financial-advisors-301161317.html?tc=eml_cleartime

JPMorgan research note on Bitcoin: https://fortune.com/2020/10/26/jp-morgan-chase-bitcoin-predictions-analyst-jpm-cryptocurrency/

https://twitter.com/DTAPCAP/status/1319703750450302980?s=20

Matt's piece on the significance of the OCC letter giving banks the authority to custody crypto assets: https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthougan/2020/07/27/the-occs-notice-on-crypto-is-a-really-big-deal/

Matt's essay on how the Fed's new approach to inflation could affect Bitcoin: https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthougan/2020/09/22/this-new-fed-policy-could-be-a-game-changer-for-bitcoin/

Matt's post on DeFi: https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthougan/2020/07/13/why-ethereum-has-valuethe--opportunity-in-programmable-money--defi/#67e88a364818

News Recap:

https://unchainedpodcast.com/a-binance-decoy-for-us-regulators/

Willy Woo, on-chain Bitcoin analyst and writer of “The Bitcoin Forecast,” a market intelligence newsletter, discusses how the Bitcoin markets have been changing amidst what may be a forthcoming ebbing of derivatives exchanges and a revival of the importance of spot exchanges. In this episode, he covers:

• what the PayPal news means when there are currently only 23.4 million holders on chain, and only 101 million active unique accounts at centralized exchanges
• why "old hands" in Bitcoin have been changing their behaviors recently, selling at bottoms, rather than tops
• how derivatives exchanges have influenced Bitcoin price action 
• why price moves in Bitcoin are likely to be less volatile going forward
• how he's detecting the purchase of Bitcoin off spot exchanges by whales and corporate treasuries
• how these shifts are affecting crypto infrastructure players
• how the price of Bitcoin moves for every dollar invested and what his projection is based on that
• why, as the price of BTC rises, he's currently seeing HODLers holding tighter than ever
• by when he believes we'll see sovereign wealth funds investing in Bitcoin
• by when he says we'll see a $50,000 Bitcoin
• why the Bitcoin NVT ratio indicates it's an "extremely great time to buy Bitcoin"
• why he doesn't focus much on ether, how he thinks it will perform under Ethereum 2.0 and why things could change if Ethereum Improvement Proposal 1559 is implemented and transaction fees end up being burned

Thank you to our sponsor!

Crypto.com: http://crypto.com

Episode links:

Willy Woo: https://twitter.com/woonomic

The Bitcoin Forecast: https://willywoo.substack.com

His charts and models: http://charts.woobull.com

PayPal news: https://www.reuters.com/article/paypal-cryptocurrency/update-1-paypal-to-open-up-network-to-cryptocurrencies-idUSL1N2HC0PL

Willy's tweet about dormancy: https://twitter.com/woonomic/status/1318154088635224065

Willy on how coins on spot exchanges are dropping: https://twitter.com/woonomic/status/1313798080236380160?s=20

Willy on NVT ratio: https://twitter.com/woonomic/status/1315839269148086272

Willy on ETH: https://twitter.com/woonomic/status/1313099814041653248?s=20

Jessie Liu, partner at Skadden and the former US attorney for the District of Columbia, headed up the team that has prosecuted what some believe is the greatest number of cryptocurrency crimes worldwide — Welcome to Video, Dark Scandals, Helix, North Korea, Hamas/Al Qaeda and ISIS. In this episode, she discusses:

• how she came to create a Threat Finance Unit that focuses on the intersection of cybercrime that threatened national security
• what the DOJ's new cryptocurrency enforcement framework means and what the significance is of the framework 
• what parts of the framework crypto startups should pay attention to
• whether the DOJ will continue to act in concert with other agencies, as it did recently with its indictment of four executives at cryptocurrency derivatives exchange BitMEX in conjunction with an enforcement action by the CFTC against the same exchange
• how DOJ can claim jurisdiction over exchanges located outside the US, on a practical level, go after entities located outside 
• how the FATF global standards will affect enforcement in the US
• the DOJ's stance toward "anonymity-enhanced" cryptocurrencies, or privacy-preserving coins
• the DOJ's disagreement that EU's privacy law, GDPR, can be used by some crypto exchanges to keep the DOJ from obtaining data from those exchanges
• how willing foreign countries are to coordinate with US law enforcement and whether cryptocurrency criminals could engage in jurisdictional arbitrage

Thank you to our sponsor! 

Crypto.com: http://crypto.com

Episode links: 

Jessie Liu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessie-k-liu/

Skadden bio: https://www.skadden.com/professionals/l/liu-jessie

Press release about cryptocurrency enforcement framework: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-william-p-barr-announces-publication-cryptocurrency-enforcement-framework

Cryptocurrency enforcement framework: https://www.justice.gov/ag/page/file/1326061/download

Unchained podcast about FATF rules: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-the-travel-rule-is-one-of-the-most-significant-regulations-in-crypto/

CoinDesk on how the enforcement framework is a warning shot to offshore exchanges: https://www.coindesk.com/doj-crypto-framework-warning

Links from news recap:

https://unchainedpodcast.com/bitcoin-whale-rocket-chart