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| What you need to know today in crypto and beyond June 24, 2021 Sponsored By: Welcome to The Node.
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–Daniel Kuhn
Today's must-reads Top Shelf INDUSTRY’S LARGEST: Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) raised $2.2 billion for its Crypto Fund III, the industry's largest crypto-related fund to date. The venture firm also announced today it’s bringing on former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) official Bill Hinman as an advisory partner. In other money moves, the Novogratz-backed Cryptology asset group invested an additional $49 million in Block.one.
END OF AN ERA: Software mogul and crypto booster John McAfee was found dead in a prison in Barcelona after the Spanish High Court ruled to extradite him to the U.S. where he faced tax evasion charges, in part, related to schemes involving cryptocurrencies. McAfee was a larger-than-life figure in the history of computing and crypto, though his legacy also includes failed projects, broken promises and associations with alleged scams.
EXCHANGES EXPAND: U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is entering the Japanese market, filings with the country’s financial watchdog show. This comes at a time when competition is rising. Bloomberg reported Wednesday that Peter Thiel-backed crypto exchange Bullish plans to go public via a SPAC merger with fintech-focused acquisition company Far Peak Acquisition Corp. Lastly, derivatives giant FTX is following Binance’s lead in offering tokenized stocks.
YES NFT, BUT NOT CRYPTO: Ant Group says NFTs are not cryptocurrencies, after selling out 16,000 copies of “blockchain-based” images on the company’s payment platform Alipay. The response seems to be linked to China’s increased crackdowns on crypto trading and mining.
–Helene Braun & D.K.
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John McAfee "embodied a lot of things about 2017 era crypto […] but I do think that the space needed to grow up.”
–FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, on CoinDesk's “First Mover.”
A message from CoinDesk EIP 1559: Ethereum's Fee Market Upgrade Explained CoinDesk Research's newest report dives into the economic impacts and investment implications of Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1559. At its core, the code change is designed to make transaction fees on Ethereum less volatile and more predictable.
At the same time, EIP 1559 also poses several risks to Ethereum including risks of miner capitulation or revolt, technological risk in the form of unexpected bugs, and risk of user disappointment. In this report, CoinDesk Research gives an overview of how EIP 1559 works and its intended impact for investors, miners and users. Download the full report.
What others are writing... Off-Chain Signals A Decrypt investigation found that Strike, El Salvador’s key bitcoin partner, may lack the necessary licenses to operate across the U.S. Supporters of Hong Kong's Apple Daily are storing its archives on a blockchain after the government shut it down (The Block) Roc-A-Fella co-founder can’t sell Jay-Z album as an NFT, court rules (Protos) A pair of South African brothers have vanished, along with Bitcoin worth $3.6 billion from their cryptocurrency investment platform (Bloomberg)–D.K.
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Putting the news in perspective The Takeaway The Case for Vulgarity on the Blockchain In 2017, a 14-year old student athlete posted vulgar language to Snapchat. “F**k school f**k softball f**k cheer f**k everything,” Brandi Levy posted to her 250 followers, along with a video where she and her friend extended their middle fingers, all because she failed to make the varsity team.
The snap disappeared in 24 hours but a screenshot was sent to the school’s cheerleading coach. Levy was suspended from the junior-varsity team for the school year, kick-starting a legal battle between the school board and Levy, which wound its way up to America’s highest court, over the right to student expression.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled yesterday to protect student speech on social media. In an 8-1 decision, it was decided the Pennsylvania school had overstepped its bounds and violated Levy’s First Amendment right. This ruling upholds a longstanding tradition of protecting controversial speech even on campus – even if it’s vulgar, falls against school rules or is unsportsmanlike, as the school argued – so long as it is not genuinely disruptive. The case is significant as more and more of our communication takes place online, forcing courts, schools and workplaces to grapple with the ramifications. Speech is no longer localized; it can go viral the world over. It’s no longer ephemeral (even on Snapchat) when it can be easily recorded and shared. So should speech still have the same protections?
The court, thankfully, argued yes. But it’s a worrisome matter of fact that it could have gone the other way, and further, that not every country has such a robust tradition of protecting speech as the U.S. Worse, as some may argue, schools may not be able to regulate student speech (with notable exceptions) but the private platforms where it occurs certainly can.
As CoinDesk columnist and venture capitalist Nic Carter noted in an essay this summer, the distinction between public and private authorities has been eroded. While there may be laws on the books protecting free expression, in practice speech is often curtailed or silenced online. In a separate piece, Carter argued for a “user-owned and operated social internet built on a public key infrastructure,” which he sees as the only way to “resist tyrants both in the public and the private sector.” The rise of the metaverse, the extension of ownership rights over digital money and the attempt to create “censorship-resistant” technologies all speak to the shrinking divide between on- and offline realities. Crypto’s great aim could be described as trying to make the elastic, frictionless world of the web a little more life-like.
In his brief for the court, Justice Stephen Breyer quoted a well-known aphorism: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” (He noted the quote is often attributed to Voltaire, but was likely coined by Evelyn Beatrice Hall.) It’s good that there are public institutions willing to defend basic civil liberties. What’s also needed is public infrastructure, like blockchains, to defend the same rights.
–D.K.
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