Well, that escalated quickly – Paypal, Mastercard, and Visa now all want to play crypto. US banks have been greenlit to custody by the OCC (Office of the ComPtroller of the Currency) and Ethereum seems to have finally thrown off its slumber. Over 4 billion dollars is now locked up in DeFi and Bitcoin just strapped a rocket on. All in all, an excellent week in crypto. Comment

Oh, and GPT-3 is a thing.

Picks of the Week

This epic thread on the recent guidance by the OCC. This thought-provoking exploration of progress as a myth. A fascinating outline of tech/deflation and destructive monetary policy with Jeff Booth. This highly instructive visualization of being ‘dumped on’. While you are at it – watch this sobering visualization of money printing.

Twitter

High-value thread examining the implications of recent OCC crypto guidance (highly recommended):
https://twitter.com/CaitlinLong_/status/1286226852244160512

On one aspect of Satoshi’s genius:
https://twitter.com/gladstein/status/1283906498154962949

It’s demanding to be a Bitcoin maximalist (highly recommended):
https://twitter.com/Croesus_BTC/status/1285390811111100416

On BTC price moves (recommended):
https://twitter.com/alphaazeta/status/1284585367702773762

Is price stability a worthy goal?
https://twitter.com/pierre_rochard/status/1284908820888727552

Debunking – ‘Eth has no value’ (recommended):
https://twitter.com/MorganTBennett/status/1283891876098121728

Get on the Bitcoin ark:
https://twitter.com/Moon__Capital/status/1284979890488516608

Erc-20 tokens marching on:
https://twitter.com/MessariCrypto/status/1283830758986207234

A mega-thread on GTP-3 (highly recommended):
https://twitter.com/JayAlammar/status/1285498971960598529

The global economy is very fragile:
https://twitter.com/NorthmanTrader/status/1282966507513937921

Articles

Analyzing the Bitcoin journey (highly recommended):
https://dergigi.com/2020/06/15/the-bitcoin-journey/

Reframing hashrate (highly recommended):
https://blog.kraken.com/post/5719/kraken-intelligence-introduces-new-statistical-model-for-bitcoins-hashrate/

US banks cleared to handle crypto:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-banking-regulator-green-lights-crypto-custody-at-federally-chartered-banks

The Twitter hack was not about Bitcoin but there were lessons to be gleaned from it (recommended):
https://medium.com/in-bitcoin-we-trust/the-7-big-lessons-that-twitter-massive-hack-teach-us-on-bitcoin-62351b2bfb1a

An introduction to building DeFi on Ethereum (recommended):
https://blog.coinbase.com/introduction-to-building-on-defi-with-ethereum-and-usdc-part-1-ea952295a6e2

A stablecoin of the future? (highly recommended):
https://medium.com/@atvanguard/a-curvy-defidollar-c249438c154a

Progress as a myth (highly recommended):
https://wrongalot.substack.com/p/progress-as-a-myth-the-thielian-moment

GPT-3 an explanation (highly recommended):
https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/a-simple-explanation-of-gpt-3-571aca61208c

Discussing FED corporate intervention:
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/16/fed-corporate-intervention-worry-365047

Debt, debt, debt (recommended):
https://app.hedgeye.com/insights/86668-the-world-is-drowning-in-debt?type=macro%2Cmarket-insights

Podcasts

Jeff Booth on the tech/deflation dynamic (highly recommended):

Gigi on Bitcoin (highly recommended):

https://bitcoinundco.com/en/gigi/

Is (global) dollar shortage no longer an issue (highly recommended):

YouTube

Unpacking Bitcoin’s history to date (recommended):

Plotting the next BTC breakout:

Watch and learn (highly recommended):

Token swap in action (how to earn fees as a liquidity provider – EOS specific):

Overview of Crypto.com:

A sobering visualization of money printing (highly recommended):

Infographics

CME open interest ramping up:

https://twitter.com/skewdotcom/status/1286585167851683840/photo/1

So true…

https://twitter.com/CryptoBull/status/1282965149343604744/photo/1

Also true:

https://twitter.com/Melt_Dem/status/1282442479455928321/photo/1

Crazy world we live in:

https://twitter.com/lisaabramowicz1/status/1284534182539141120/photo/1

Website / Utility

A good resource re the DeFi space now – 4 billion and counting:

https://defipulse.com/defi-list/

If last week didn’t excite you – perhaps you weren’t paying attention? As always, looking forward to your comments and suggestions.

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.