“We’ve certainly come to an era now where private currencies are in real competition with central bank currencies.
The major trendlines, of private companies creating their own money, the rise of open-source crypto projects, the fintech stack, have not even begun to play themselves out.
To stay relevant, governments around the world will likely issue their own central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). This might be the most significant monetary event of all, which will have far-reaching consequences at every level of society. Money will never have been more transparent, more programmable, more technocratic.
In countries that are small, or where the central banks themselves are not that credible, and where their currencies suffer from a lot of volatility or possibly inflation or hyperinflation, the easy availability of digital versions of major currencies such as the dollar, the euro or even the Chinese renminbi, or even stablecoins issued by corporations such as Facebook, could lead to the decimation of some of the smaller currencies.
There are questions about whether something like ether – if Ethereum does adopt proof-of-stake – could serve as a more efficient medium of exchange, because it would then have lower latency and higher throughput. So maybe that might be a route to stability. But it’s hard to see proof-of-work protocols successfully supporting mediums of exchange. Perhaps ethereum will start giving fiat currencies some degree of competition.”
See Also: Is the Dollar Doomed?
“On July 28, 2021, a new bill was introduced in the US House of Representatives. The bill is called the “Digital Asset Market Structure and Investor Protection Act” (“Digital Asset Bill”). And for the majority, it sets out future rules for crypto. However, hidden in this bill, changes to the foundation of the Dollar are proposed.
Included in the Digital Asset Bill, amendments to the Federal Reserve Act and the definition of legal tender are proposed. These amendments drastically expand the powers of the Federal Reserve, and change how money is created and distributed in the US.
The original idea behind the Federal Reserve was for private bank deposits to be combined in a reserve. This could provide an emergency line of credit in times of economic stress. Contrary to what is widely understood, the Fed does not “print money.” It can only manage the money supply indirectly.
According to the Digital Asset Bill, section 11 of the Federal Reserve Act is to be amended to provide the Federal Reserve Board with new powers:
The Federal Reserve System is authorized to issue digital versions of Federal reserve notes in addition…is authorized to use distributed ledger technology for the creation, distribution and recordation of all transactions involving digital Federal reserve notes.
The Fed is currently not as powerful as it wants the market to believe; the Federal Reserve Act restricts a lot of its actions. This amendment, however, could drastically expand the powers of the FED, by allowing them to create and distribute a “digital USD” directly. It could change the entire structure of the financial system, with far reaching consequences.
It is a bit hard to imagine that such a centralized structure would not lead to monitoring of all transactions. And what mechanism will determine how funds (and how much) are added to the economy? And where and how will they be distributed? Will this all be under the control of a board of seven unelected bureaucrats? And how will they control a distributed ledger of such magnitude?“
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“Fans buy, acquire or earn tokens, which represent a share in a creator’s career.
Crypto networks facilitate stronger relationships between creators and users. These relationships will introduce economic rewards and incentives to strengthen network effects.
It’s possible that “empowered” fans may go too far. Giving someone an economic stake in your career may make them feel entitled to make decisions on your behalf. Artists may be less incentivized to experiment or change direction, and super-fans may become your most vocal critics. And it’s not just your art that affects a token’s price, but potentially anything you do or say.
There’s also the unknown effects of conflating artistic worth with financial success. In a great introduction to social tokens, venture capitalist Rex Woodbury wrote, ‘In the future, instead of measuring a creator’s clout based on her Instagram following, we’ll point to her market cap.’
So what happens after the token creator dies? Assuming crypto is as “unstoppable” as claimed, the tokens should still exist and be tradeable. It’s possible death spells the end for a community, or, as so often the case in the history of art, a new critical awareness of the artist’s work.
There’s no single answer to this question, in part because tools like social tokens allow for the creation of so many different types of communities.”
“Frontrunning isn’t just for Citadel anymore. Undertaking these types of transactions in the world of crypto is far easier than it is on equity markets or futures markets.
The creators of Flashbots attest that they are simply “trying to solve a serious problem” of miners having power to decide which transactions in a block get priority while processing transactions for the ledger. While Flashbots doesn’t eliminate the frontrunning, it makes it available for everyone. The software “makes a market out of cutting in line.”
These transparent auctions differentiate crypto from the predatory, opaque manipulation that goes on in traditional financial exchanges.”
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“Similar to the “.com” web craze, the latest fever in cryptocurrency markets has buyers scooping up blockchain domain names, which are being minted and sold as NFTs. Blockchain domains turn complex hexadecimal wallet addresses into easy-to-remember names and also enable censorship-resistant websites.
The domain names typically end in phrases such as “.crypto” or “.eth.” And some of the tokens are changing hands for upwards of $100,000 on NFT marketplaces like OpenSea. Since starting in 2018, Unstoppable Domains has registered over 1.4 million domain names, including several for Fortune 1000 companies.
These blockchain naming services are similar to the Internet’s Domain Name Service (DNS) but possess different underlying architecture and are based on the Ethereum blockchain. Some speculators are betting the value of blockchain domain names will approach the value of their Internet equivalents if crypto adoption heats up.”
“NFTs and blockchain technology have steadily seeped into the art and charity world, enabling artists and museums to monetize their work and continue to receive payments for their work even after it is sold.
Earlier this month, Russia’s Hermitage Museum, the largest art collection in the world, sold NFTs of several masterpieces in partnership with Binance’s NFT marketplace in order to cover the budget shortfalls brought about by the continuing COVID-19 crisis, with the auction including the sale of a work by Leonardo da Vinci for $440,000. New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the largest art museum in the U.S., is expected to do the same by selling 219 prints and photographs to help make up for $150 million in lost revenue.
DoinGud’s blockchain-based social media and marketplace is designed to facilitate charitable giving via NFT sales to vetted social impact organizations of the creator’s choice. It will lead to ever-increasing opportunities to support worthy charitable causes that share the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals like ending world hunger, solving climate change and more.”
“With Oasis Multiply, you can now use your ETH, wBTC or other Maker supported collateral types to create a Multiply position (up to 4x*) and take advantage of upward trends of the supplied collateral.
Oasis Multiply, which is built on top of the Maker Protocol, 1inch DEX aggregator and Aave, allows users to borrow Dai and create Multiply Positions, which are similar to leveraged or margin positions but without the need to borrow funds from a centralised counterparty.
Overall, the approach in Oasis differs from existing models because instead of traditional options, such as counterparties lending users traditional fiat money for assets (like stocks), users access Dai by utilizing Vaults on the Maker Protocol. A user deposits collateral in a Vault to self-generate Dai as a funding source to purchase more collateral, multiplying their exposure to the asset.”
See Also: Official DAI Token Bridge now live on Arbitrum One
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“Environmental:
According to the Bitcoin Mining Council’s Q2 2021 Global Review, 56% of the energy used to power the Bitcoin network is renewable. Bitcoin mining companies do have a financial incentive to lower their energy costs and be sustainable.
In a memo in April, ARK Funds, led by Cathie Wood, and Square Crypto, led by Steve Lee, elaborated on research into how the Bitcoin network will lead to the growth of renewable energy. They made the case that bitcoin will likely do more than any government subsidy or program to grow renewables.
Former engineer and bitcoin mining expert Hass McCook noted that bitcoin mining emits less than 5% of the legacy financial sector’s carbon emissions.
Social:
Some 70% of the citizens of El Salvador are unbanked according President Nayib Bukele, and yet most have a phone. Accordingly, they can use a mobile bitcoin wallet, which is now plugged into a worldwide monetary system.
Because the supply of bitcoin is capped at 21 million, foreign leaders cannot make decisions that affect the savings of Salvadorans.
Governance:
Bitcoin has no decision-makers. Bitcoin is for all, and whether you have 0.00001 BTC or 10,000 BTC, the rules are the same, and you have the same benefits. There is no insider information – Bitcoin is open-source for all to review and see. Bitcoin does not discriminate by faith, sex, creed, gender – or anything.
Rules without rulers – what is fairer than that?“
See Also: A third of Salvadorans ‘actively’ using Chivo wallet, President Bukele claims
“Reddit forum WallStreetBets has traditionally been standoffish toward crypto. It’s finally branching out into Bitcoin and beyond. The WSB forum was ground zero for GameStop stock purchases earlier this year. Its members now number close to 11 million.
In April, WSB made a small concession to its members interested in cryptocurrency, allowing discussion of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin—but no others—on a single thread. bawse1 wrote that the moderators didn’t want to “burden everyone with crypto spam.” That concession was reversed within 48 hours after Bloomberg ran an article titled “WallStreetBets Bows to Crypto.”
Now, crypto comments have their own home, with far fewer restrictions. The new subreddit, called WallStreetBetsCrypto, already has 14,000 members.”
The Disrupt 