Coinigy Insights Weekly Roundup #3
Presenting the Insights team's Weekly Roundup #3! 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
Where Did The Money Go? Inside the Big Crypto ICOs of 2017 by Jeff Kauflin at Forbes
- Initial coin offerings have raised a ton of money over the past 2 years -- $20 billion to be exact. But where is all that money? Kauflin takes a look at 10 of the largest ICOs who collectively raised $840 million to see where exactly those projects stand and where their finances are at.
Crypto Sentiment Study by CoinDesk in conjunction with MarketWatch
- CoinDesk and MarketWatch teamed up to take a look at how different communities (i.e. CoinDesk and MarketWatch audiences) compare in their sentiment surrounding cryptoassets. While the two groups do share opinions on many different topics surrounding the industry, there are key areas where they differ. For example, just 10% of CoinDesk's readers view Bitcoin as being too risky as an investment while that number of MarketWatch's readers nears 60%.
2018 Q3 Cryptocurrency Report by CoinGecko
- The team at CoinGecko released their quarterly report on the cryptoasset industry which covers a wide range of topics such as initial coin offerings, masternodes, non-fungible tokens, market capitalizations, and more. The 46-page report is a great read and is a must for anybody seriously involved in the industry.
Mapping out bitcoin’s supply chain by Stephen Zheng at The Block
- Continuing in their excellent maps of the cryptoasset industry, The Block visually outlines a so-called supply chain for Bitcoin to show all of the different user flows between the network itself, users/investors, and merchants.
Update: Bitcoin, Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain by Morgan Stanley Research
- Multinational financial services firm Morgan Stanley put out an updated version of their report on Bitcoin and the cryptoasset ecosystem. Namely, it noted the rise in institutional investor interest as the community's thesis around Bitcoin evolves toward one of it being a new asset class rather than a means of payment.
What is it like to be a Bitcoin? by Nic Carter of Castle Island Ventures and Coin Metrics
- Carter takes a look at how public blockchains can lack a sense of true identity with a comparison to the famous Ship of Theseus paradox. This is an inherent problem of decentralized, public systems as there will always be different views of what they are and should be. With that said, Carter lays out solutions toward leaderless identity.
Money and payment systems in the digital age by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS)
- BIS General Manager Agustín Carstens gave a speech at the University of Miami Business School outlining why the organization believes cryptoassets are receiving too much hype as a means of payment and why they are not a realistic solution. The report received widespread criticism for its lack of understanding of developments going on in the space, primarily second layer solutions for scalability.
Industry News Bits
This week saw the 10th anniversary of the Bitcoin whitepaper, which saw its release on October 31st, 2008 and sparked the cryptoasset revolution.
Former U.S. Representative Ron Paul called for the exemption of cryptoassets from capital gains taxes and other taxes.
U.S. economist and former Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System Janet Yellen stated her distaste for Bitcoin and why she is not a fan of it.
The company behind controversial stablecoin Tether posted a balance confirmation from their bank Deltec Bank and Trust Limited, though the announcement did little to quell community concerns.
Sweden's central bank, Sveriges Riksbank, released their second report as an analysis of what an e-krona could mean as a solution to declining use of cash.
Thailand's Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) warned the public of investing in nine unauthorized initial coin offerings (ICOs).
Bitstamp, one of the longest running cryptoasset exchanges, announced that they were acquired by NXMH, an investment holding firm and subsidiary of Barclays.
Global consulting firm Ernst and Young (EY) released their EY Ops Chain Public Edition (PE) prototype, a zero-knowledge implementation on the public Ethereum blockchain for anonymizing transaction activity.
The Winklevoss twins, investors and founders of the cryptoasset exchange Gemini, are suing early Bitcoin investor Charlie Shrem, claiming that Shrem allegedly stole ~5,000 BTC from them back in 2012.
Cryptoasset consumer platform giant Coinbase announced that they had raised a series E investment round of $300 million, their largest round to date.