The First Crypto War May Lead to Lasting Peace
Once national reserves sunk, governments had to raise taxes or sell bonds to continue fighting. But in WWI, as the initially localized conflict spread, fiscal discipline failed. As Ammous explains, within the first month “all major belligerents had suspended gold convertibility, effectively going off the gold standard and putting their population on a fiat standard.”
We Can Vote Away Your Money for Free: The Implications of Juno Prop 16
Instead, it shows that blockchains, too, involve social as well as technical consensus. The airdrop Sybil attacker, after all, didn’t break any obvious government laws; he or she just abused an open system so badly that other users had to take action to defend it. For some, this response will be seen as an upside […]
After ‘Doxxing’ Fracas, Bored Apes Team Starts Asking for Customer ID
Clicking the “register” button will direct you to another site called Blockpass, which runs identity verification processes for crypto services. Here, you’ll need to provide your passport, your national ID or your driver’s license, along with proof of residence. There’s also a list of banned countries: If you live in China, Russia, Cuba, Iran or […]
Elizabeth Warren and the Mysticism of the Crypto-Skeptics
It is convenient, if inevitably reductive, to describe the arc from superstition to reason in terms of two individual thinkers. On the one hand, we have Plato, whose Theory of Forms argued that every actually existing object in the world was just a pale echo of some pure Type that existed far away, in the […]
Safeguarding Our Privacy in an Age of Transparency
If you use an Ethereum Name Service address (or something similar) or if you have a non-fungible token (NFT) linked to your Twitter profile picture, you are broadcasting your data to the world and, whether consciously or not, making a statement about yourself. If you curate and showcase your NFTs, collect proof of attendance protocol […]
Executing on Biden’s Crypto Executive Order
The majority of the reports required by the order relate to enforcement. The broadest of these is likely Treasury’s report with policy recommendations “to protect United States consumers, investors and businesses, and support expanding access to safe and affordable financial services.” The most impactful may be a joint U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and […]
Profile Pic NFTs Are Suffocating Crypto Art
Projects like BAYC have acted like potent contrast dyes injected into the corpus of art NFTs, helping to delineate the borderline between JPEG-as-underlying-asset poker chips and digital fine art. And now that the line has been drawn so clearly, it remains for the NFT community’s serious artists and the platforms providing their marketplace infrastructure to […]
Crypto Firms May Look at Traditional Finance Firms as M&A Targets
If some observers are right, cryptocurrency mergers and acquisitions may soon become a “man bites dog” story. This much is clear: Deal activity in the crypto sector is heating up. As mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies grows, so has the number of mergers and acquisitions in the digital assets market. New deals or partnerships that blur […]
GameFi Is a New Game for Southeast Asia Players
To participate in P2E games, players require access to in-game NFTs, which can often be beyond their financial reach. By lending NFTs to its community members, commonly known as scholars, YGG is financially appealing to players who want to use their gaming skills to bring home extra bacon. COVID-19, which left many players jobless, also […]
ENS and the Limitations of DAO Governance
It reminded me of a scene in the first season of “Succession,” where board members are voting on whether to remove Logan Roy, CEO of the media conglomerate Waystar Royco, from the company he founded so many years ago. Logan is forced to recuse himself, since he’s the subject of the vote, but he refuses […]