I did a podcast for “When the Music Stops” with fellow crypto skeptic David Gerard, where we discuss the Justice Department’s criminal probe into T...
2021-07-29 14:46:08 +0000 UTC View Post
Early this morning, Bloombe...
2021-07-26 19:26:15 +0000 UTC View Post
My Patreon account saw seven new subscribers this month, so far. Thank you! Your support is a big deal. It helps me kee...
2021-07-20 14:01:57 +0000 UTC View Post
Ever since Germany’s BaFin and the UK’s FCA issued warnings against Binance, the dominoes have continued to topple. Global regulators are fed up with the world’s biggest crypto exchange.
This...
2021-07-17 17:39:12 +0000 UTC View Post
Last thing I remember,
I was running for the door.
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before.
“Relax,” said the night man,
“We are programmed to receive.
Jeremy Allaire is taking his Boston-based company Circle public via a SPAC. Circle is best known for its stablecoin USDC, which now has a market cap of $25.5 billion.
In all his press interviews ta...
2021-07-10 01:17:03 +0000 UTC View PostIt looks like Reginald Fowler, the man tied to hundreds of millions of dollars of missing Tether and Bitfinex money, has ditched plans for renegotiating a plea deal. Instead, he is planning to head to trial.
In case you missed my tweet, I ended up sick at the end of June. I was chatting with a friend over Zoom when he noticed that I was tilting over in my chair. Was I drunk? No. Should he call an...
2021-07-08 03:33:05 +0000 UTC View Post
RSA Conference, arguably the world’s largest gathering of computer security experts, surprised everyone Saturday nigh...
2021-07-04 09:50:31 +0000 UTC View PostBinance, the world’s largest dark crypto slush fund, is struggling to find corners of the world that will tolerate its lax anti-money laundering policies and flagrant disregard for securities laws.
On Thursday, the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority2021-07-02 20:35:34 +0000 UTC View Post
On June 8, El Salvador passed a law to make bitcoin legal tender, alongside the dollar. Salvadorans were blindsided by the decision. Overnight, their president, Nayib Bukele, had turned into a bitcoiner, even adopting the 2021-07-02 20:22:05 +0000 UTC View Post
In June, I wrote a story for Artnet (paywalled) describing how NFTs create new ...
2021-06-10 23:36:29 +0000 UTC View PostOne of my favorite Tether skeptics, Trolly McTrollface, had to take down a parody post about Stuart Hoegner today.
Trolly received an email from his hosting service this morning warning him that he had committed some kind of copyright infringement. (It’s not clear that he did, but Trolly ...
2021-05-25 01:42:16 +0000 UTC View PostI’ve been inconsistent with my newsletters lately because I’m struggling to write this dang NFT book. It is slow going, and I keep falling down these rabbit holes. I feel like if I don’t hurry, the entire crypto market will collapse and NFTs will become a distant memory. Nevertheless, next ...
2021-05-16 17:34:30 +0000 UTC View PostTether, the world’s most popular stablecoin issuer, released a breakdown of the composition of its reserves backing tethers on May 13.
The breakdown i...
2021-05-13 17:30:57 +0000 UTC View PostBitcoin is sitting at around $54,000, and Tether has hit a new milestone: 50 billion tethers in circulation, something it’s 2021-04-26 17:57:43 +0000 UTC View Post
Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the U.S., just announced it is listing tether (USDT), the world’s dodgiest stablecoin.
Tethers, for the uninitiated, a...
2021-04-23 12:12:08 +0000 UTC View PostBitcoin rose above $60,000 again. It only took 6 billion tethers to make that happen since the last time it hit $60,000 in Ma...
2021-04-12 04:50:35 +0000 UTC View PostMany technologists today were disappointed to learn that Signal, an encrypted messaging service, is adopting MobileCoin (MOB), a new cryptocurrency that went live in December, for paym...
2021-04-07 20:36:22 +0000 UTC View PostI’m working on a book on NFTs and how they became the tulip mania of crypto. As of now, the plan is to self-publish on Amazon, hopefully before the bubble explodes like 2021-03-30 02:24:45 +0000 UTC View Post
BitClout, a social-media-on-the-blockchain project, is selling a type of token (called “creator coins”) tied to influential Twitter accounts—without account holders’ permission.
And folks are getting understandably pissed off.
At first, I thought these creator coins were NFTis...
2021-03-28 20:27:56 +0000 UTC View PostI’ve been traveling the U.S., visiting friends on the East and West Coasts and in between, and this is my first newsletter in a few weeks.
This week has been a busy one, full of interviews and talking to reporters about nonfungible tokens. Who knew NFTs would become this big? I’ve gaine...
2021-03-22 14:00:17 +0000 UTC View PostNFTs are all over the news lately.
Recently, I was having drinks with a friend, who knows zip about crypto, and out of the blue, she started asking me about “non-fungible tokens.”
The next day, a musician friend posted an amateurish drawing of a guitar on Facebook, proudly announc...
2021-03-19 01:57:49 +0000 UTC View PostLast week, a crypto whale going by the moniker “Metakovan” bought a Beeple artwork via Christie’s auction for $69 million—$60 million in ETH and $9 million in fees—outbidding a surprised Justin Sun, founder of the Tron blockchain, in the last minute.
After the barest amount of dig...
2021-03-15 01:22:01 +0000 UTC View PostDear Patrons,
I just wanted to drop a note and thank you all for your kind support— and share some news.
I’ll be in another film!
I’m filming for another Quadriga...
2021-03-04 01:09:50 +0000 UTC View PostThe New York attorney general issued a stern warning to crypto companies and crypto investors on Monday. Crypto firms doing business in the state must play by the rules or face consequences, she said. And to investors, she underscored the hazards of dabbling in the crypto markets.
The two-p...
2021-03-01 19:46:20 +0000 UTC View PostFebruary is coming to an end. I’m waiting to get vaccinated, so I can travel without worry again. Maybe I’ll go to some crypto conferences later this year? I still have fond memories of C...
2021-02-28 21:28:39 +0000 UTC View PostI wrote a quick article this morning about the New York attorney general settlement, wherein Bitfinex and Tether agreed to pay $18.5 million in penalt...
2021-02-24 04:01:54 +0000 UTC View PostBitfinex and Tether have settled with the office of the New York attorney general in an investigation that began two years ago.
The sister companies will pay $18.5 million in penalties to the state for violations of the Martin Act, according to a 2021-02-23 16:29:36 +0000 UTC View Post
I nearly ventured to Austin Wednesday, but my flight was canceled due to the storm, havoc, and general disaster in the area. I found another flight later in the day and was headed out the door, when I thought, nah. Turned out to be a good decision, since I probably wouldn’t have survived more t...
2021-02-22 00:09:09 +0000 UTC View Post