Cardano Rumor Rundown February 16, 2023

Hey Everyone!

Let’s go….

Newly Covered Today:

1. While I hate it as a metric, Cardano TVL is definitely looking up. https://defillama.com/chain/Cardano
2. Operation Chokepoint 2.0 continues. https://twitter.com/jespow/status/1625887480556974081
3. Here’s the rebuttal to the crypto custody rule from Hester Peirce. https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/peirce-statement-custody-021523
4. Interesting thread alleging who in the current administration is pushing this attack on crypto and why. https://twitter.com/ThinkingCrypto1/status/1625621477365096449
5. Binance expects to pay fines to settle U.S. investigations. https://www.wsj.com/articles/crypto-giant-binance-expects-to-pay-penalties-to-resolve-u-s-investigations-f1e3c9d2

Previously covered, but still interesting:

1. Anticipation is building for what’s coming in Cardano this year and next. https://twitter.com/conraddit/status/1618409005621342208
2. Charles dropped a video on the settlement layer vs. the computation layer. https://youtu.be/cvROzVEAxAM
3. Here’s a great thread on validator recovery in Cardano (Nakamoto consensus) vs. BFT (Solana, Aptos, Cosmos). https://twitter.com/hans_the_crypto/status/1619513935656542209
4. The value of Cardano’s true liquid staking is being massively slept on when liquidity-by-derivative staking arrangements are subject to depegging that has toppled even large crypto institutions in the past. https://twitter.com/jconorgrogan/status/1619782908826521600
5. Coti has dropped a new article describing Shen stakepool delegation & minting/burning minimums. https://twitter.com/COTInetwork/status/1619784132447567873
6. The Cardano Foundation has released a video on its core focus areas: 1) operational resilience, 2) education, and 3) adoption. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89d8t72C4Uk
7. Liqwid has deployed to the preview testnet. https://twitter.com/liqwidfinance/status/1620198616550998016
8. New messaging on crypto from the Biden Administration. Apparently, deeper ties between crypto and tradfi would be a “grave mistake”. https://www.whitehouse.gov/nec/briefing-room/2023/01/27/the-administrations-roadmap-to-mitigate-cryptocurrencies-risks/
9. This CoinDesk article from a former regulator makes the point that regulators think we already have regulatory clarity on crypto. What we really want are changes to the status quo. https://www.coindesk.com/consensus-magazine/2023/01/27/regulatory-clarity-financial-watchdogs-could-not-be-more-clear/
10. Coti has announced that the Djed minimums are to bootstrap liquidity at launch and may be reduced in the future. https://twitter.com/DjedStablecoin/status/1619962502418407426
11. Djed is now live. https://twitter.com/COTInetwork/status/1620392034124328960
12. SundaeSwap has announced their own Governance Portal. https://twitter.com/SundaeSwap/status/1620485846125412357
13. Given the history of AgeUSD type algorithmic stablecoins, some ecosystem members are expressing heavy doubts regarding the future position of Shen holders. https://twitter.com/zygomeb/status/1620427967179681794
14. Paima Studios has joined the Microsoft for Startups Program. https://twitter.com/PaimaStudios/status/1620335885131862017
15. It looks like FutureFest debuted some new features in their event on Feb. 1 with Fever Dream Friends and Skull Candy. https://twitter.com/futurefestxr/status/1620902250720927744
16. This is actually very big progress on the mainstream exposure front courtesy of Lex Fridman. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beZdNf_mO1o
17. The UK Treasury has released its long awaited proposal for crypto regulation. Looks like they’re trying to be technology agnostic and focused on a principle of “same risk, same regulatory outcome”. https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/future-financial-services-regulatory-regime-for-cryptoassets
18. The Fed has hiked the federal funds rate by 0.25% bringing the target range to 4.5-4.75% This is a much smaller raise than the 0.50% in December and the four consecutive 0.75% increases just prior to that. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/01/fed-rate-decision-february-2023-quarter-point-hike.html
19. Here’s a great thread from Sooraj of This Week in Cardano on the Cardano Settlement Layer (CSL) vs. Cardano Computation Layer (CCL) and Cardano Sidechains including the new Cardano Sidechain Toolkit from IOG. https://twitter.com/Soorajksaju2/status/1620564722515861505
20. Here’s an interesting new Cardano statistics site. https://peerreview.money/
21. Liqwid has launched on Mainnet (Feb 2). https://twitter.com/liqwidfinance/status/1621129278518890497
22. Cardano is now arguably “DeFi feature complete” depending on your definition. https://twitter.com/cardano_whale/status/1621092500093145088
23. Plus….Liqwid has dark mode on Day 1. Let darkness reign! https://twitter.com/liqwidfinance/status/1620985328118157313
24. The World Mobile exhibit (fan built) in Carda Station looks pretty good. https://twitter.com/JoyeousT/status/1621225742435745793
25. World Mobile says it’s going to increase its Youtube efforts. This will be good for visibility of a very large Cardano RealFi project. https://twitter.com/WorldMobileTeam/status/1621191509218365444
26. Paul did a great interview with DC and Florian of Liqwid today (Feb 2). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8F_f4rLipA
27. COTI has published a Djed launch recap. https://medium.com/cotinetwork/djed-launch-recap-b5ec293e20dd
28. Charlie Munger at 99 years old thinks we should ban Bitcoin. Also thinks the leader of the CCP is awesome. https://twitter.com/ODELL/status/1621151302838525952
29. There is now a proposal in the Liqwid governance forum to reduce LQ token emissions. https://twitter.com/liqwidfinance/status/1621351623887917056
30. ImperatorLang made a great thread about how to get started building on Cardano with no prior programming experience. https://twitter.com/ImperatorLang/status/1622283773759950849
31. Shocker! VCs are not going to do what’s best for crypto communities. https://twitter.com/Dogetoshi/status/1620602151830704129
32. Some are pointing to A16Z’s involvement in a rival bridge and calling it anti-competitive behavior. https://twitter.com/ChrisBlec/status/1622201701921964035
33. Apparently, there is now 30 million ADA locked in the Djed contract. Not bad in the first week. https://twitter.com/DjedStablecoin/status/1622298562628407298
34. Behold the Cardano media blackout in all its glory! https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1622528162499383299
35. At Messari you can see that our recent 24h active address count is 73k (as of Feb 6). https://messari.io/asset/cardano/metrics/all
36. Having watched Martin throughout the '90s and Bad Boys (about a million times), it's surreal & amazing to see that the content is interesting to a guy who entertained me so much. Thank you immensely! https://twitter.com/realmartymar/status/1622710686647287808
37. Binance dot com (but not binance dot US) has announced a temporary pause of US dollar & US bank transactions. https://twitter.com/binance/status/1622669988560609293
38. Some are linking this to issues with its banking partner, Signature. https://gizmodo.com/binance-bank-transfers-crypto-ftx-1850079035
39. Liquid has published a summary of what’s happening with LQ tokenomics and utility. https://liqwidfinance.substack.com/p/lq-tokenomics-and-utility
40. A very legitimate point about the stark contrast between ETH and Cardano on governance. Do you want a bunch of guys locked in a room for a week or transparent on-chain governance? https://twitter.com/StakeWithPride/status/1623064762610499586
41. If you held all of the Cardano Summit 2021 NFTs at the Virtua snapshot in November and still haven’t grabbed your free miner bot, there is a window open right now (Feb 7). https://twitter.com/landbots_virtua/status/1623005985324380181
42. Some in the traditional finance world already see where crypt is going. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ninabambysheva/2023/02/07/how-mastercard-goldman-sachs-and-other-tradfi-titans-are-using-blockchain-to-rewire-global-finance/
43. Here’s the one-tweet summary of that article if you run into the paywall. https://twitter.com/Blockworks_/status/1622966028299902977
44. Artifact Moon has released their beta 3d Moon Map with the ability to buy parcels from the map. Seems beautiful and responsive. https://twitter.com/ArtifctApp/status/1623045948690800640
45. Fed Chair Jerome Powell was interviewed at The Economic Club of Washington today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkC4LuuxOg4
46. CoinDesk wrote an article about the activity in SundaeSwap governance. https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/08/cardano-dex-sundaeswap-floats-first-on-chain-governance-proposal/
47. Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to present the king of all bad crypto policies. https://twitter.com/brian_armstrong/status/1623459203150131201
48. Unsurprisingly, the crypto crackdown that was long predicted for after the mid-term elections is also taking place via banking access (once again). https://twitter.com/AP_Abacus/status/1623346563069116417
49. Nice try, Coin Center! The real difference is between custodial staking and non-custodial staking. https://twitter.com/NeerajKA/status/1623469303545593856
50. Liquid protocol was temporarily paused via multisig today for a security issue fix. https://twitter.com/liqwidfinance/status/1623345076016406530
51. The UK has released a consultation paper on plans for the Digital Pound saying “it is likely” to be needed. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1134845/CBDC_WEB_PDF_-_7_FEB_2023_1130am.pdf
52. Apparently, you can now invite the public to come check out your Cardano Island Crib. https://twitter.com/VirtuaMetaverse/status/1623365199032946697
53. Get ready for lots of Cardano essays. Twitter Blue people now have 4k characters. https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1623411400545632256
54. Looks like Kraken was the first staking target of the SEC. https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2023-25
55. Gensler released a video which very specifically described staking in terms of “escrow” or “if you transfer your tokens to a staking-as-a-service provider”. Neither of these is common in normal Cardano staking or delegating. But, it sounds a lot like the Ethereum staking world. https://twitter.com/GaryGensler/status/1623777842000539648
56. Rumors are that other exchanges & stablecoin providers will receive letters outlining charges soon. One posted rumor is mentioning Circle (USDC) & Paxos specifically. https://twitter.com/AP_Abacus/status/1623785788725944322
57. Here’s some wild speculation from one poster: if Circle agrees to limit/censor USDC in some way, it might lead to demands from ETH users to employ some kind of social slashing, which could cause a schism (and create fork potential) in that ecosystem. https://twitter.com/jessebabies/status/1615769704353734656
58. Charles posted a reply to Brian Armstrong’s staking tweet that savagely highlights the regulatory problem with Ethereum’s custodial/slashing based staking. https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1623530227870896130
59. Charles also dropped a video explaining how (in the very worst scenario) Cardano staking could still operate via “contingent staking” even if SPOs were regulated. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7y2tvpHY5w
60. Now the SEC is going after Binance USD stablecoin issuer, Paxos. https://archive.ph/nrgeU
61. Jessie Powell (founder of Kraken) posted “I don’t think that any minor differences matter to the SEC, which views all forms of custodial staking as problematic.” If true, this is massively bad for Ethereum and confirms the advantage in Cardano. https://twitter.com/jespow/status/1623825932011155457
62. Here’s the actual complaint in the Kraken/SEC settlement. https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2023/comp-pr2023-25.pdf
63. Coinbase has released a comprehensive defense against their “Earn” staking program being classified as a security under the Howey Test and vowed to fight if the SEC goes after them. While I don’t find their reasoning to be bulletproof or extremely persuasive. The value is in the commitment to fight. We need this hard line in the sand right now. https://www.coinbase.com/blog/coinbases-staking-services-are-not-securities-and-heres-why
64. The community is predictably conflicted about the possibility of contingent staking. https://twitter.com/IOHK_Charles/status/1624937015824510976
65. Here’s a fantastic thread by Sooraj explaining the huge innovative leap forward provided by Ouroboros Genesis for dynamic participation in proof-of-stake systems and making Cardano more secure than Ethereum or Algorand. This is by far the best explanation I’ve seen. https://twitter.com/Soorajksaju2/status/1623748877152034818
66. FutureFest obviously understands the importance of proximity audio chat in virtual worlds. https://twitter.com/coc_space/status/1623759580017614848
67. Congratulations to MinSwap for its highest one day volume! https://twitter.com/MinswapDEX/status/1623322182670508034
68. And just like that….the legend of “Corando” was born. https://twitter.com/MinswapDEX/status/1623322182670508034
69. Looks like 3D assets are live for Cardano Island cribs. https://twitter.com/k45tor/status/1623370449869541387
70. There’s 30 million ADA now locked in the Djed contract (as of Feb 10). Update as of Feb 12: 31.5 million ADA. https://twitter.com/DjedStablecoin/status/1622298562628407298
71. The messaging against the energy use in Bitcoin is fully ramping up now courtesy of Bloomberg and the Harold and Kumar guy. Knowing that this would happen was a part of choosing proof-of-stake and Cardano for many of us. https://twitter.com/WalkerAmerica/status/1624847319928655874
72. Here’s the statement from Paxos on the SEC enforcement pressure. They say they will no longer issue new BUSD. https://twitter.com/PaxosGlobal/status/1625091554951004161
73. Apparently, Circle filed a complaint regarding Binance with NYFDS last year that led NYFDS to direct Paxos to sever their relationship with Binance. https://finance.yahoo.com/finance/news/stablecoin-issuer-circle-warned-york-184748322.html
74. Here’s Caitlin Long on why the Federal Reserve rejected the application of Custodia Bank and whether this is part of a larger attempt to strangle all of crypto by the current administration. https://twitter.com/YahooFinance/status/1625166752291119105
75. Charles dropped a new whiteboard (actually blackboard) video on contingent staking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36WUIyk0T9g
76. Higher than expected US inflation numbers were released today (Feb 14) with the CPI up 6.4% from a year ago. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/14/consumer-price-index-january-2023-.html
77. Looks like the Cardano Island Condos will be opening tomorrow. https://twitter.com/VirtuaMetaverse/status/1625543057927028752
78. More rumors circulating that we’ve got a lot more crypto enforcement actions coming our way to “cut off crypto in all its” forms. https://twitter.com/CGasparino/status/1625475673073635330
79. This one is calling it a “midnight massacre” where Gensler will bring as many enforcement actions as possible before the new congress gets its bearings. https://twitter.com/EleanorTerrett/status/1623796900586573826
80. Today the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs held a hearing called “Crypto Crash: Why Financial System Safeguards are Needed for Digital Assets”. https://www.banking.senate.gov/hearings/crypto-crash-why-financial-system-safeguards-are-needed-for-digital-assets
81. To counter the Dragon’s depiction of crypto as basically just a money laundering tool, Chainalysis points out that only 0.24% of crypto volume is illicit transactions. https://twitter.com/clarkcoin1/status/1625641638906277888
82. Today was the mainnet SECP hardfork combinator event. https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1625615743470411784

~Army of Spies