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| What you need to know today in crypto and beyond May 18, 2021 Sponsored By: Welcome to The Node.
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Today's must-reads Top Shelf PULL OUT: Investors pulled some $50 million from cryptocurrency funds last week, the first net redemptions of the year, as bitcoin’s price tumbled. A new CoinShares report shows the outflows are a small fraction of the $5.6 billion put into investable crypto products this year. Long-term investors such as MicroStrategy have seemingly used the 35% price pullback to buy the dip. DEFINTECH: Banking fintech Current will integrate Acala, a Polkadot-based decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, into its core banking product and join the network as a validator. It’s a first step toward debuting on-app DeFi tools for Current’s 3 million users, CTO Trevor Marshall said in an interview. TRANSACTION PIPELINE: Blockchain sleuthing firm Crystal Blockchain says it has located the address that DarkSide hackers used to collect a 75 BTC (~$5 million) ransom from the Colonial Pipeline. The hackers may have controlled a cluster of 30 addresses – holding 321.5 BTC – that have since sent funds to Binance and darknet marketplace Hydra. CUSTODY SOLUTIONS: Crypto custody firm Fireblocks says it has handled more than $500 billion in assets since 2019. London-based custody firm Copper raised $50 million in Series B funding. Swiss asset manager Valour launched Cardano and Polkadot ETPs. Digital bank Sygnum is the first to offer custody of Dfinity’s ICP token. And finally, BitGo hired former NY BitLicense compliance chief, Cassie Lentchner, as COO. LEGAL QUANDARIES: The Malaysian businessman who bought an NFT of the first-ever tweet for $2.9 million has reportedly been arrested in Iran on unspecified charges. Meanwhile, Ruja Ignatova, the self-appointed “CryptoQueen,” and the firm OneCoin, which she founded, have been found in default after failing to respond to a case over the alleged $4 billion scam cryptocurrency project. Ignatova is out on the lamb.
–D.K.
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First COVID. Then Gamestop. Then Coinbase. The events of the last year have destined bitcoin to play an integral role in our world.
Next week at Consensus by CoinDesk, our virtual big-tent conference, we explore the place of bitcoin as an asset, as a worldview and as a response to the extraordinary policies coming out of our financial, technological and societal institutions.
Join our Explorations track "Bitcoin as a Worldview" with Cynthia Lummis, Lyn Alden, Dan Held, Meltem Demirors and more at Consensus by CoinDesk, May 24-27. Register today.
Overheard on CoinDesk TV Sound Bite “Blockchain is definitely overused in financial services. It's not the most flexible and scalable technology in lots of circumstances. But where it becomes really valuable is circumstances where you can replace trust with truth.”
–Figure CEO Mike Cagney, on CoinDesk TV's "First Mover."
What others are writing... Off-Chain Signals FOX is making a blockchain animated series with Rick and Morty creator Dan Harmon to sell you NFTs (The Verge) Bitcoin ‘Greener Than Petrodollar’: Human Rights and Energy Analysts (Decrypt) It’s Not Just Crypto Crashing: Here Are All The Market Bubbles Popping So Far This Year (Forbes) Ethereum co-founder on why he got into crypto: Empower the little guy, ‘screw’ the big guy — ‘they already have enough money’ (CNBC)–D.K.
A message from Saïd Business School, University of Oxford and Esme Learning Embrace the Fintech Revolution with the Oxford Fintech Programme. Saïd Business School, University of Oxford and Esme Learning are working in partnership to deliver the Oxford Fintech Programme, a six-week, online course accessing critical industry and academic insights. You’ll gain foundational knowledge and explore emergent fintech trends from a global perspective, as part of an immersive cohort through a world-class center of learning, teaching and research. As a CoinDesk subscriber, you can receive a 15% reduction on the program fee when you register to attend.
A message from CoinDesk Introducing Unlocked 101 at Consensus by CoinDesk 2021 New to crypto? Here's a crash course. Unlocked 101 is a free educational series of sessions designed to give you the tools to navigate crypto. Sessions will be hosted May 4–20 to prepare you for Consensus by CoinDesk 2021, our virtual big-tent event.
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Circle: NFTs and the New Frontier of Mainstream Crypto Adoption By now, it’s quite clear: 2021 is the year of non-fungible tokens. A day doesn’t go by when there isn’t some news of another huge celebrity coming to the NFT space, or some new auction setting new records, or some new community driven collectible taking over the Twitter-sphere.
Putting the news in perspective The Takeaway Dave Portnoy Just Wants to Have Fun I’m not mad at David Portnoy. It’s impossible to be mad at David Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports, semi-professional pizza reviewer and perhaps the world’s most well-known day trader. Yesterday, Portnoy held a “press conference” where he announced he would champion a single s**tcoin, SafeMoon. It was a move perfectly emblematic of the times: irresponsible, ironic and self-aware. In the video, which has been viewed 2 million times on Twitter, Portnoy laid out six options representing “the new breed of s*** coins” to choose one to diversify his crypto portfolio into. He says he put $40,000 into SafeMoon and will hold the cryptocurrency long term. It’s a synthesis of two investment trends that developed over the past year: the outsized role influencers can play in markets and the embrace of meme assets (coins and stocks alike).
SafeMoon is a cryptocurrency designed (as the name implies) to pump – and maybe not much else, critics say. It disincentivizes selling by charging a 10% fee on each sale, a portion of which is distributed to holders as a sort of dividend. And by one metric – attention – it has certainly taken off. But its mechanics, name and the fact that 50% of the total supply is held by creators has set off warning bells. We’re living through one of the greatest market rallies in history. Propelled by stimulus checks, cheap money and a wave of young investors coming into the market, distortions have taken hold. It’s a period where memes and personality often matter more than due diligence, and where projects that announce themselves as scams are more than welcome.
"Why? I don't know f***ing why, it could be a Ponzi scheme,” Portnoy said yesterday, explaining his investment decision. “I like the word 'moon,' because that's where I want to go.” He urged his 2.5 million Twitter followers not to take his words as investment advice and to do their own research.
The video is significant not just for its blatant appeal to greed – something of a signature for Portnoy – but for how clearly it defines this moment where single investors can have outsized impacts on markets. Portnoy calls out Elon Musk for “pulling levers” to affect the price of bitcoin and dogecoin. But in the same category are Roaring Kitty, the amateur stock analyst who catalyzed the GameStop rally, and Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood.
It’s a role Portnoy has played before. During the height of the coronavirus pandemic, he led a pack of mostly millennials and Gen Z investors – the “Davey Day Trader” army – who would plow money into momentum trades. It’s also not his first rodeo with crypto.
In a follow-up presser this morning, Portnoy clarified he liked SafeMoon because it already had a number of backers, it’s difficult to buy and it provides the chance to be early on something. It's also funny. (Cyndi Lauper’s 1983 hit “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” played in the background.)
Indeed, SafeMoon has garnered a number of advocates hoping the crypto will do what the name implies – safely go to the moon. It’s shilled endlessly on Twitter. Fortune reported there could be 2 million SafeMoon holders.
But there are also legitimate concerns that it’s a scam – or at least supports scammy behavior. SafeMoon CEO John Karony has warned publicly that “the core team will never ask for your wallet,” apparently in response to scammers.
Crypto analyst and investor Lark Davis compared SafeMoon to known Ponzi scheme BitConnect last month. "Remember just because you make money off of a ponzi does not change the fact that it is a ponzi," he tweeted.
“Everybody knows it's a joke, but nobody cares, because as long as they get into the joke early enough and sell before the peak, they're happy. That's the game,” Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal wrote in his morning newsletter.
SafeMoon rallied some 25% after the announcement, but has since dropped slightly.
–D.K.
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