TheAMMBook.org newsletter
This week in Atlantic Time...
This week’s newsletter a bit later than usual – as I’ll be on Atlantic Time for a few weeks. Also I just learned that the IDCAP exam made its way through PearsonVUE finally, so I may be taking it on Barbados…
What else happened this week?
VC-Backed Startup Promises Bitcoiners Way to Bypass Taxes While Buying Home (Vice)
A new lender allows crypto-rich-cash-poor punters to get a crypto secured loan with a 30 year term, and at the end they get their crypto back and own their house. Interestingly there is not much overcollateralization involved – non apparently – so the lender takes a not insubstantial correlation risk between the real estate and the BTC price. Nevertheless - very interesting model for people who want to delay capital gains taxes.
Ukraine is going all in on becoming the world’s premier crypto superpower. Now the Russia crisis is scaring investors (Forbes)
UK is lagging behind on crypto assets, says Philip Hammond (CityAM)
Sir Hammond – advisor to Copper – coming out with a stark warning as to the future competitiveness of the UK in financial services
Deutsche Börse Saw 922% Increase in Investors Demand for Cryptocurrency Products (CryptoPotato)
That’s a 10x increase in crypto exchange traded products from 2020 to 2021 – from $155m per month to $1bn per month. Still somewhat shy of Uniswap numbers (and definitely Coinbase and friends), but this is getting to be a big numbers
FTX Acquires Liquid Group in Major Eastern Expansion (Decrypt)
In the non-AMM world, big exchanges are getting bigger – through M&A. FTX is buying Liquid Group, including Quoine, which is a regulated crypto exchange in Japan
Dune Analytics raises near-$70M in Series B funding round (CoinTelegraph)
Analytics are key for DeFi, and Dune is without doubt at the centre of it. The headline should less be the $70m (which suggests they actually do not need that much money) but the $1bn valuation. Which fwiw seems low (not investment advice).
Wormhole token bridge loses $321M in largest hack so far in 2022 (CoinTelegraph)
The second hack of a bridge, within a week of Vitalik’s comment as the the inherent safety problems with bridging. Ultimately the question is whether we’ll be in a “federation of chains” world, or in a “one-chain-to-rule-them-all” world. For the time being it looks like the second one is the better solution: all defi apps migrate to a single chain (or a number of tightly couples ones) as to not destroy composability, and as to avoid those kinds of attacks.
Muneeb Ali’s Trust Machines Raises $150M (CoinDesk)
With this investment in, Bitcoin is throwing its head in the ring as a smart contract platform rivalling Ethereum (via the Stacks protocol). For DeFi this could be interesting - and Bitcoin is not “just another chain”.
Interesting research
The 2021 Global Crypto Adoption Index: Worldwide Adoption Jumps Over 880% With P2P Platforms Driving Cryptocurrency Usage in Emerging Markets (Chainalysis)
This is research from October 2021 so somewhat dated, but as it was reference in the Ukraine article I posted I thought it was good to put it up. here as well.
ETF & ETP statistics 2021: Sustainability, inflation-linked bonds and cryptocurrencies see surge in investor demand (Deutsche Boerse)
That’s the report mentioned in the CryptoPotato news item
Stablecoins: Growth Potential and Impact on Banking (Fed)
You can find this newsletter on theammbook.com. You can also read it and subscribe on theammbook.substack.com.