From Abra’s CEO – This Week in Crypto – June 17, 2020

Current Events

The Bitcoin spot price is at $9400 USD as I’m writing this which is down about 6% from a week ago.

Apparently kids (i.e. teenagers) are now passing the time by flipping stocks (quickly buying/selling) via apps like Robinhood even though this is probably illegal in the case of teens and against their terms of service. While many parents think this is a better use of time than staring at SnapChat Stories, I’m guessing there are some hard learned lessons on their way for many teens convinced this is an easy way to make a quick buck. This looks like a game of musical chairs and there aren’t enough chairs to go around. Doing this purely to make some quick money is a recipe for extreme disappointment. If you’re curious what everyone is buying in this crazy equities game there is a third party Robinhood tracker that apparently is even being watched by large hedge funds. The tail is officially wagging the dog.

The Compound project, via its recent token release, is now worth over $600 million USD.  Woah. This puts them ahead of Maker (creators of Dai) at $549 million USD in market value. Compound is one of the biggest lenders in the new and fast growing DeFi market with over $150 million USD locked in their protocol’s contracts. Time will tell if this is a speculative bubble or if real value is being created at the rate implied by these numbers. Regardless it’s clear that the killer app for Ethereum is emerging to be crypto banking with lending and stablecoins leading the way.

Thanks to Michael Casey from CoinDesk for joining Money Talks last week. We had participants from at least 25 countries based on people self identifying themselves. We had way more questions than we could answer. The recording of the live stream is up for your viewing enjoyment.

Ethereum 2.0 Redux Sprinkled with Cardano on Top

Following up on last week’s comments on Ethereum 2.0, I’ve been researching staking and the markets that are likely to evolve around this concept. In particular I’m interested in understanding where liquid staking is likely to go.  Chorus One just released a report on “Liquid Staking: Implications of Proof-of-Stake Assets in Decentralized Finance.” They define liquid staking as: “protocols that issue on-chain representations of staked assets in a decentralized network. Through tokenization, liquid staking protocols allow users to get liquidity on staked assets and enable the usage of staked assets as collateral in (decentralized) financial applications. Other terms that have been used to describe such protocols are staking derivatives and programmable staking.”  In other words liquid staking is about tapping the value in your otherwise locked up assets. Worth a read.

In a really interesting interview with Ryan Selkis, Cardano founder/creator Charles Hoskinson passionately argues that Ethereum has not achieved an insurmountable network effect and that Cardano and other technologies can and will overtake Ethereum in the coming years. He also outlines why he thinks that this adoption will happen. Cardano is getting a lot of renewed interest with its upcoming release. Cardano’s underlying crypto ADA has been the best performing of the larger crypto currencies of late. I find the project super interesting but am a little skeptical of the anti-ethereum commentary given that their smart contract implementation has been written about but has no public availability timeline. I’m cheering the Cardano team on and hope they pull it off!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJANeEkj408&feature=youtu.be

Tweet of the Week

I recently introduced this new section to my weekly update.  Here I highlight a tweet that caught my attention and I think is worthy of more commentary here. If you see a tweet you think is worthy of nomination then you should reply to that tweet and cc me on the reply to @billbarhydt.

Maximalists see only Bitcoin and Shitcoin. In reality, there are 4 categories:
1. Bitcoin
2. Ethereum
3. Other Valuable Coins, and
4. Shitcoins

Maximalists think 2 and 3 are 4, because they are insecure about 1. In reality, 2 and 3 make 1 much better. Remain wary of 4. 😜

— Erik Voorhees (@ErikVoorhees) June 17, 2020

This week’s tweet of the week is from Bitcoin/Crypto OG Erik Voorhees. Erik has consistently supported a multi coin perspective within the crypto universe as I do. I fundamentally believe that competing technologies are important to the evolution of cryptocurrency technology and that Bitcoin and Ethereum will benefit from the risks that other, more centralized projects will take. What do you think?

See you at our AMA on Friday! Until then….

Peace and Love,

Bill

What I’m reading and listening to…

Disclaimer:

Any opinions, news, research, analyses, prices, or other information provided here is a general market commentary, and does not constitute investment advice. Abra does not recommend that any cryptocurrency should be bought, sold, or held by you. Do conduct your own due diligence and consult your financial advisor before making any investment decisions. Abra will not accept liability for any loss or damage, including without limitation to, any loss of profit, which may arise directly or indirectly from use of or reliance on such information.

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