The sky isn’t falling but it sure is getting dark around here. The Fed’s intervention into overnight bank lending rates keeps expanding with further fund injections of at least $90 billion scheduled for next week (and beyond) on top of last week’s $278 billion. Apparently everything is fine, so there’s that.

Crypto remains as engaging, distracting, and as divisive as ever. The Alts rallied to more or less universal surprise but they remain far from ‘recovery mode’. Recent rate cuts by the ECB and the Fed could be considered positive for crypto. The BTC chart looks taut…Bakkt long lauded now has many pundits about a pending Bitcoin dump. Well, at least we live in interesting times.

Picks of the Week

This article exploring decentralized identity and individual reputation systems is a highlight. Also highly recommend getting up to speed on the Fed’s recent market interventions.

Twitter

The real pushback against BTC (crypto) hasn’t even begun:
https://twitter.com/MiguelCuneta/status/1173514669295685632

A light-hearted ‘How to BTC’:
https://twitter.com/HassMcCook/status/1173845516381294593

A BTC maximalist asks – when to sell?:
https://twitter.com/tmsbtc/status/1171619945786105858

Bullish metrics for ETH
https://twitter.com/spencernoon/status/1174048561287311360

DAI is trading at a significant premium in Argentine – here’s why (recommended):
https://twitter.com/CamiRusso/status/1174314821283647489

On the current state of play for ETF proposals:
https://twitter.com/jchervinsky/status/1174342408726818819

Deciphering Ripple’s recent court filing (re: XRP as a security):
https://twitter.com/jchervinsky/status/1175069838647201792

The banks have a plan (highly recommended):
https://twitter.com/i/status/1174659899915214848

Fed intervention in the repo market just became ‘normal’:
https://twitter.com/AlexSaundersAU/status/1174839081148141568

On investing (non-crypto specific):
https://twitter.com/tayooye/status/1173789393628336128

Articles

Exploring the relationship between decentralized identity and reputation systems (highly recommended):
https://lindajxie.com/2019/09/11/decentralized-identity-and-reputation/

Mixicles – yet another new term worth being aware of (relating to smart contract-oracle-privacy):
https://decrypt.co/9037/chainlink-ceo-sergey-nazarov-mixicles-smart-contract-defi-privacy

Impress your (nerdy-dateless) friends by succinctly explaining a ‘Merkle Tree’:
https://hackernoon.com/merkle-tree-introduction-4c44250e2da7

A wallet that addresses Bitcoin privacy and why it’s hard to get anyone to use it:
https://hackernoon.com/bringing-privacy-to-bitcoin-using-design-wasabi-wallet-tk4g43148

This should put you at ease (move along, nothing to see here):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/fed-announces-plans-to-provide-more-support-for-repo-market/2019/09/20/233031f0-dbe1-11e9-a1a5-162b8a9c9ca2_story.html

That’s a lot of cash on the sidelines:
https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/blackrock-head-says-70-trillion-in-cash-sitting-idle-as-opportunities-dry-up-20190908-p52p4u.html

Investment guidance by someone who has well earned the right to offer it (recommended):
https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/philosophies/

Podcast

Cryptocurrencies and the state are naturally in opposition to each other:

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/how-cryptocurrencies-could-threaten-the-state-ep-90/id1347049808?i=1000449616028

YouTube

Fear and greed or just greed? (highly recommended if you trade):

Examining the relationship between global debt and asset bubbles:

Crypto insurance (for custodial services) sounds great but as usual, the devil is in the details (just an introduction to the topic):

Explaining government bonds and negative yields (recommended):

Infographics

Trading volumes have dropped off in recent months (slightly dated but suppressed volume remains):

Ethereum’s De-Fi network is building out impressively:

https://twitter.com/AlexSaundersAU/status/1171272444100792320/photo/1

As has the Binance Chain ecosystem:

https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1172064996441767941/photo/1

Website / Utility

Bitcoin halving countdown utility:

https://www.binance.vision/halving

Interesting times indeed! See you down the crypto rabbit hole once again next week.

Note on Sources:

Twitter & Reddit (cryptos current meta-brains) / Medium / Trybe / Hackernoon / Whaleshares / TIMM and so on/ YouTube / various podcasts and whatever else I stumble upon. The aim is a useful weekly aggregator of ideas rather than news. Though I try to keep the sources current – I’ll reference these articles and podcasts etc. as I encounter them – they may have been published just a couple of days ago or in some cases quite a bit earlier.