Coinigy Insights Weekly Round #4
Presenting the Insights team's Weekly Roundup #4! 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 past 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 and Insights
5 crypto-native indicators to enrich your market cycle analysis by Felipe Gaúcho Pereira of Paradigma Capital
- Here, Pereira takes a look at a handful of indicators that can help investors analyze the cryptoasset market cycle. These tools include aggregate security spend, market value to realized value (MVRV and MVRV-z), UTXO age distribution, NVT / NVT signal, and network momentum.
The Unintended Consequences of Product Design by Taylor Monahan of MyCrypto
- One of the most discussed aspects of cryptoassets is the need for usable applications to bring the industry to mainstream use. Monahan describes many of the unique issues in the cryptoasset space, and what developers have to be mindful of.
Blockchain-based elections would be a disaster for democracy by Timothy Lee at Ars Technica
- Replying to the New York Times' recent piece about how blockchain technology can aid in elections, Lee provides an explanation as to how it actually offers little to help the issues that elections suffer from. If anything, he says, it could make things worse.
A New Model for Token Distribution by Kyle Samani of Multicoin Capital
- Samani lays out fundamental concerns with measuring decentralization, and thereby lists ideas about how projects could utilize new models for distribution of tokens. One such model he suggests is merkle mining.
DeFi vs Fintech by Tobia De Angelis of Token Economy
- 'Decentralized finance' (or DeFi for short) is a term thrown around when talking about how decentralized applications will disrupt traditional systems. But what exactly does it mean? Angelis breaks down just how DeFi defers from the broader group of 'FinTech'.
Transaction count is an inferior measure by Nic Carter of Castle Island Ventures and Coinmetrics.io
- One of the most common metrics that new decentralized platforms tout is the theoretical transactions-per-second (TPS) it could support. The problem is that this is one of only a few metrics to consider when measuring a value transfer system. Carter breaks down these other metrics and why they matter -- namely typical transactions chracteristics and settlement assurances.
Industry News Bits
An official from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) stated that 'plain English' guidance for projects that plan to hold an initial coin offering (ICO) is coming.
Global consulting and services firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers' (PwC) Hong Kong arm has partnered with the Loopring Foundation to research and understand bringing trust and confidence to the blockchain space, primarily focusing on stablecoins.
Stellar is partnering with wallet provider Blockchain to airdrop $125 million worth of Stellar Lumens (XLM) to millions of users around the world.
Internation law firm Perkins Coie hired blockchain veteran Kari Larsen to serve as partner for their Blockchain Technology and Digital Currency industry group.
The chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) noted how the use of distributed ledger technologies (DLT) can help automate market regulation.
Spanish bank BBVA issued the world's first syndicated loan for €150 million using blockchain technology.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Zachary Coburn, founder of the EtherDelta DEX, with operating an unlicensed securities exchange.
Energy giants Shell and BP are co-launching a blockchain-based platform for post-trade processes for the energy industry.
Colorado's ICO Task Force took action against four initial coin offerings (ICOs) who they claimed were selling unlicensed securities.
China extended its regulation that makes cryptoasset trading and initial coin offerings (ICOs) illegal to apply to airdrops as well.