Week in Review: 6/18/2021
A recap of what happened in crypto for week-ending 6/18/2021
News Updates
Miami’s mayor looks to relocate Chinese bitcoin miners
There’s some uncertainty around the future of mining in China. A mix of reports of miners leaving the country for places like Texas as well as others saying Chinese mining is aiming for increased renewable energy has caused some lingering confusion over the future of where hashing will come from. Francis Suarez, determined to make Miami the next Silicon valley, is trying to woo those miners to Miami with promises of clean energy and cheap electricity.
Mark Cuban gets burned from the failure of IRON
Cuban has been pretty vocal about his interest in crypto, and DeFi in particular. He’s known to have invested in multiple crypto-based projects and partakes in DeFi activities like yield farming and trading on decentralized exchanges. One of the reasons he’s admired in the community is his willingness to get into the nitty gritty of actual protocols.
Unfortunately for him, this week, he got burned when an algorithmic stablecoin project he invested in spectacularly collapsed. When I say spectacularly, I do mean quite extravagantly. The price of $TITAN, one element of the project, went from $60 to $0 in 24 hours. Those who were lucky to dump got out early while others saw the value of their investment become worthless. But c’mon, are you really a true DeFi degen, man-in-the-arena if you’ve never been rugged?
Cuban has since called for more regulation of stablecoins, although he remains a large proponent of DeFi. These were his comments on the situation:
India may move to label bitcoin as an asset class
The love-hate relationship between cryptocurrency and India has been fascinating to watch this current cycle. India traditionally has been a protectionist country, so I imagine a faction of the government disapproves of the threat cryptocurrency poses to its ability to manage the country. On the other hand, the industry is growing at large in the country backed by prominent businesspeople. For example, just this week, DeFi Alliance announced an India chapter for its accelerator program. If you’ll also recall, there was a Covid relief fund set up for India, of which Vitalik Buterin donated to. It’s fair to say the country will continue to have an uncertain future with crypto in the short-term, but where it goes long-term will be important to watch.
Steven Cohen, Paul Tudor Jones publicly expressed support of crypto in recent interviews
Cohen: “I’m fully converted to crypto. You have to pay to learn; there’s no way around it. You can talk all you want, but you’ve got to get in the game…. The timing is never good. Who knows if it’s going to go up? I don’t care about the bitcoin price. I care more about the blockchain technology and how disruptive it could be. The way those markets are developing could be a real interesting adjacency to what we do... I’m not going to miss this. I missed the first part, but I still feel like I’m early. I may look foolish initially, but it accordingly to learn the game. And then, when you’re confident, take it to the next level.”
Jones: “I thought things were crazy then, I think they’re crazy now. I like bitcoin as a portfolio diversifier. The only thing I know for certain, I want 5% in gold, 5% in bitcoin, 5% in cash, 5% in commodities”
Stablecoin supply is beginning to flatten
Data is available in the link. Stablecoin growth hasn’t been this slow since 2019. Critics of DeFi liken it to a ponzi scheme so this is a way of finding out how sustainable the projects are. If influx of new capital dries up in the system, leading to lower yields, are people still going to be participating in the lending/borrowing or trading activities on decentralized protocols?
Picture of the Week
