Coinigy Insights Weekly Roundup #2

Presenting the Insights team's Weekly Roundup #2! Apart from the original research pieces the Insights team works on, the Roundup series aims to highlight key pieces of work from the community as a whole. Along with this, we briefly describe key industry news developments that took place during the week that community members may have missed. If you have any questions or think we missed something important, feel free to let us know!

Research

Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs): The Class of 2017 - One Year Later by Ernst & Young (EY)

• Almost a year ago, global professional services firm Ernst & Young (EY) took a look at some of the most popular and well-funded initial coin offerings (ICOs). In this follow-up, EY went back and analyzed the same group of ICO projects to see where they stood. Interesting takeaways include:
  • 43/141 project tokens have lost 90%+ of their value.
  • 71% have no offering in the market as of yet (i.e. no product or release to show for their work).
  • Some of the best investments in 2017 are Ethereum competitors, but as of yet, none come anywhere close to actually competing with it.

The Evolving Role of Crypto Investors by Tushar Jain of Multicoin Capital

• As one of the more well-known crypto-specific funds, Multicoin touches on how investing in blockchain projects and the teams behind them is fundamentally different than traditional venture capital investments. For a peer-to-peer network, it is important for the investor to be actively involved in the networks they back.

What's Really Driving the Cryptocurrency Phenomenon? by Iterative Capital

• Iterative Capital provides one of the best contextual outlines of developments in technology, how that translates into Bitcoin, and what it could all mean for the future of Bitcoin's success. The thesis goes through historical context, distributed consensus, value accrual, and other aspects of Bitcoin to provide a well researched and thought-out position.

How does tokenization work, anyway? by Albert Ho of Rate3

• Confused about tokenization? Want to know what can and can't be tokenized? Curious about the incentives to go the tokenization route? Ho covers all of this and more in a lengthy post going through the ins and outs of tokenization and why, in his view, it is bound to see heavy utilization in the future.

Cryptocurrency Pump-and-Dump Schemes by Tao Li, Dongwha Shin, and Baolian Wang of University of Florida and Princeton University

• Pump-and-dumps and other forms of price manipulation remain a large problem for cryptoassets, especially for smaller illiquid coins. Here, Li, Shin, and Wang illustrate the overall negative effect that pump-and-dumps have as well as theorize why traders agree to participate in these schemes.

Reimagining Trusted Intermediaries by Electric Capital

• The rate of adoption for new technology is at the highest point it has ever been. This applies to cryptoassets and the services that they are facilitating with how traditional functions are being made more open, trustless, and transparent.

We Asked Crypto News Outlets If They’d Take Money to Cover a Project. More Than Half Said Yes by Corin Faife at Breaker

• One of the biggest issues in crypto is the lack of unbiased and uninfluenced news sources. While there are emerging outlets tackling this issue, it is still extremely prevalent. In this groundbreaking piece, Breaker exposes just how many crypto-specific news outlets openly charge and accept money (in some cases, a lot of money) in return for press coverage.

Dear Founder, you now have money. By Adam Draper of Boost VC

• Not necessarily crypto-related, but given the immense growth the space has been seeing, this piece could not be more relevant. For anybody thinking of launching a project, starting a company, or raising money, Draper goes into what it means to really have money down the road and how to handle it.

Volume 2, Issue 42 of Diar Newsletter

• With their weekly newsletter, Diar continues to provide in-depth, well-researched, and insightful views into the cryptoasset ecosystem. This week, they focus on Tether's stance as a stablecoin and the increased competition they are seeing along with touching on institutional custody solutions and the effects of Monero's recent bulletproofs implementation.

Industry News Bits

China's Cyberspace Administration published draft regulations for blockchain-related companies and services that would require them to collect personal information on all users, as well as censor any content that could be considered a national security threat.

ING confirmed the release of its Zero-Knowledge Set Membership (ZKSM) solution, aimed at improving data privacy in blockchain uses for financial services (original ING announcement since deleted).

Cryptoasset industry giant Coinbase launched support for USD Coin (USDC), a regulated dollar-backed ERC-20 stablecoin, in conjunction with Circle.

The Switzerland-based Capital Markets and Technology Association (CMTA) published a set of standards for financial insitutions and businesses for how they should handle digital assets.

Visa prepares B2B Connect, a distributed-ledger based platform that facilitates financial institutions processing cross-border payments.

Consumer technology giant HTC is now allowing for customers to sign up for preorders of its blockchain-enabled Exodus 1 mobile phone, accepting payments only in crypto.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released notes from its October 9th meeting with representatives from VanEck, SolidX, and CBOE regarding the proposed Bitcoin ETF.

Stock exchange operator and market news outlet Nasdaq won a patent, originally filed in January of this year, for a blockchain-based platform for the release and transmission of time-sensitive information.

Cryptoasset mining giant Bitfury is reportedly considering going public as Europe's first major crypto company to hold an initial public offering (IPO).