The Breakdown

Rob Paone, aka Crypto Bobby, got his start as a popular crypto YouTuber and has gone on to help build a number of crypto companies before launching his own technical recruitment firm. Preethi Kasireddy is the founder of the TruStory debate platform. In two individual interviews as part of The Breakdown’s end of year extra, both argue that a big part of the 2019 story was the slow, steady slog of building, and that, in some ways, 2020 may be poised for more of the same. 

One of CoinDesk’s ten most influential people of 2019, Melem Demirors is a crypto renaissance woman, known best for investing, operating as CSO of CoinShares, and for explaining ‘shitcoins’ to Congress. In this end of year Breakdown, Meltem argues explains why the entrance of governments to the digital asset game is the most significant story of 2019, as well as suggesting that the presence of an entirely new financial infrastructure around bitcoin means the halvening is likely to be unlike what anyone thinks. 

Peter McCormack is one of the most prominent podcasters in the space. In 2019, he added a new podcast called “Defiance” and focused on the intersection of bitcoin, human rights, and political activism to complement his “What Bitcoin Did” podcast. In this special end of year episode of The Breakdown, Peter discusses why the past year represents an inflection point for citizen action and sovereign protest around the world, and why 2020 is likely to see a continued bloodletting among non-bitcoin cryptoassets.   

One of the most important (yet somehow quiet) narratives of 2019 has been the financialization of bitcoin and the emergence of a robust market for derivative products. That was reinforced today as Binance announced a significant investment in derivatives exchange FTX. How will key events coming up in 2020 like the bitcoin halving be impacted by the presence of derivatives?    At the same time, not all crypto projects are trying to change money. Some, like the Saint Fame DAO, a fashion house-slash-human coordination experiment, are simply trying to do interesting things that people think are cool.

Accredited investor laws block most of the US out of technology and other types of early stage risk investing, but as the ICO boom showed, not being allowed to do something doesn’t mean that people don’t want to do it. The SEC announced prospective changes to those laws that could expand accredited status. In the world of DeFi, a number of different projects including Synthetix (with an assist from Chainlink) and Kyber are looking to more fully decentralized heading into 2020. And finally a quick review of the CoinDesk 2019 most influential list, including why Hodlonaut is the best selection. 

From “digital gold” to “stacking sats” to “ETH is money,” 2019 was a year of narrative battlegrounds and meme warfare. And when every narrative is competing for scarce resources and attention, things are sure to get contentious. This special episode breaks down Ryan Selkis’ recent list of top ten crypto narratives and adds a few more worthy of note. Does “The Revolution Need Rules?” Is “Dissident Tech” the newest important area of focus.

More crypto businesses are transitioning to or choosing to focus exclusively on bitcoin only from the beginning, in some ways representing a productization of bitcoin maximalism. In China, however, the government is cracking down fiercly on resurgent crypto businesses that have taking President Xi’s positive comments about blockchain as an excuse to operate more openly. Interestingly, the attitude of many US financial firms seems to be shifting from a version of “blockchain not crypto” to “digital assets not blockchain” as they begin to adapt to demand from customers. 

The podcast discusses the potential resurgence of Bitcoin as a payment utility in 2020 through Lightning applications. It also explores the growth of derivatives in the crypto market, with CoinFLEX and ErisX making significant moves. The announcement of a holiday bonus in Petro for public employees in Venezuela raises questions about digital currencies as a tool of control.

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde’s comments on stable coins flew around crypto Twitter yesterday, as she said projects in the space indicated clear demand (even while slighting bitcoin in the same statement). Meanwhile, two once hugely hyped projects - Orchid and Filecoin - have both resurfaced. What might this mean for the narrative of tokens going into 2020? Lastly, in her end of year piece for CoinDesk, Jill Carlson triggered an avalanche of commentary by arguing that crypto isn’t supposed to be mainstream, because its primary use case is to for censored transactions. 

The last few days have seen significant regulatory action, from SEC charging Shopin’s CEO with fraud over a $42m ICO to a major coordinated federal action against a $722m crypto Ponzi scheme. Over in the world of decentralized finance, meanwhile, a new project aims to show DeFi isn’t just for Ethereum. Finally, Twitter is launching a Square Crypto-like skunkworks to support or create an open social media protocol. This and more on The Breakdown.