THIS NEWSLETTER IS SPONSORED BY | Happy Saturday! Noise: ConstitutionDAO, that crypto stuff is still in the infrastructure bill that Biden just signed and airdrops are getting to be a touchy topic! Signal: below. Mike Orcutt here. | | | A brief history of ConstitutionDAO. After a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) recently acquired a rare Wu Tang Clan album for $4 million, everyone naturally wondered: what's next? Thanks to an auction of a rare copy of the US Constitution by Sotheby's, we found out quickly. ConstitutionDAO organized in a flash late last week. By Wednesday it had raised $25 million. By the time of the auction on Thursday night, it had raised $47 million. Unfortunately, in a shock, the DAO lost — to Citadel founder Kenneth Griffin, no less. Never change, crypto. | So is infrastructure week over? President Joe Biden signed Congress's bipartisan infrastructure bill after it finally passed in the House. The new bill contains a controversial new definition of "broker" that cryptocurrency advocates say inappropriately imposes tax reporting requirements on certain crypto network participants. Senators Ron Wyden and Cynthia Lummis have already introduced a new bill that would remove the controversial language. Senator Ted Cruz has submitted a separate bid to repeal the crypto broker definition. If you care about this kind of stuff, you should probably stay tuned. | The startup that developed El Salvador's bitcoin wallet app and ATMs is taking the product global. Kristin Majcher was able to catch up with Athena Bitcoin CEO Eric Gravengaard, who confirmed prior speculation that Athena had developed the technology underlying El Salvador's Chivo-branded wallet app and ATMs. Now, the company is pitching the product suite to other governments. | What's the fairest way to do an airdrop? Airdrops have become a touchy subject of late, especially since the controversy a few weeks ago over a VC firm that was revealed to be "pre-farming" an airdrop for a protocol that it had invested in. The latest controversy comes thanks to an airdrop from DEX aggregator Paraswap, which was designed to eliminate "airdrop hunters." But by going out of its way not to reward people for gaming the system, the team appeared to leave at least some real users out of the airdrops — and many of them were not happy about it. As Tim Copeland explains, designing a big crypto airdrop fairly has become quite challenging. | What the heck are social tokens? Platforms like Roll and Rally have recently emerged to help artists, musicians and other creators launch their own cryptocurrencies. But why would anyone want to do that? And is there a downside? MK Manoylov explains what's going on. | Lawyers are telling their crypto clients in the UK to leave the country. Ryan Weeks caught up with several industry insiders who confirmed that top-shelf lawyers are advising crypto firms to target UK users from outside the UK. Here's why. | ICYMI: Bitcoin activated Taproot, a long-anticipated upgrade that will enhance the network's privacy and security. Paradigm launched a new $2.5 billion venture fund for crypto companies and protocols. Square published a white paper describing a decentralized exchange for bitcoin. Quintin Tarantino is facing a lawsuit over his Pulp Fiction NFT drop. Crypto.com bought the rights to rename LA's Staples Center for $700 million.
A rehabilitation plan for Mt Gox is now final. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said he intends to donate up to 99% of his wealth. Macy's is launching a series of NFTs themed after its Thanksgiving Day Parade. Crypto asset manager Osprey will launch a new entity that could invest hundreds of millions in NFTs. Coinbase "can bring billions of users to DeFi by making it easy to use," according to CFO Alesia Haas. Binance integrated Ethereum Layer 2 network Arbitrum One. |  | Bitso unveiled a new stablecoin tool for Mexico-US payments. Social platform Upstream is rolling out a build-a-DAO tool. Ava Labs has partnered with Deloitte to create a blockchain-based disaster reimbursement platform. Bitpanda plans to launch crypto derivatives. MakerDAO founder Rune Christensen joined venture capital firm Dragonfly Capital. Copper CEO Dmitry Tokarev will become a billionaire on paper when the startup raises $500 million in the coming weeks.
Kraken subsidiary Crypto Facilities was approved to operate in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority. US Federal Reserve governor Christopher Waller objected to suggestions in the recent President's Working Group report on stablecoins. Former CFTC commissioner Brian Quintenz has joined the board at Kalshi, a CFTC-regulated 'events market.' Neobank N26 has halted US operations. Jihan Wu's mining startup Bitdeer is planning to go public in the US via a SPAC.
| | | It's unicorn season. There are now at least 64 crypto/blockchain companies that have reached $1 billion valuations. That number is up 1,850% year over year. Naturally, The Block Research has created The Block Unicorn Index (subscription required).
DeFi, but for institutions. If "permissioned DeFi platforms" are a thing, that's what Maple Finance is. According to co-founder Sid Powell, institutions want the kind of yields that DeFi protocols generate, "but don't know how to do it in a compliant manner and don't trust existing protocols out there for that."
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*Click here to learn about Bakkt's spreads for bitcoin transactions | | | The immediate aftermath of a Sotheby's auction for a copy of the US Constitution was … chaotic. Lots of people were confused about who won and crypto media outlets even reported that ConstitutionDAO had successfully purchased the artifact. Nope! Vice has the whole story. | | | "So that technically looks like a 17-hour block if you look at the history."
—Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko, explaining to Tim Copeland why in his view the network's 17-hour downtime in September wasn't that big of a deal. | | | You are receiving this e-mail because you are subscribed to The Block's free newsletter. If someone shared this newsletter with you, you can easily subscribe to receive it in your inbox here. If you're looking for even more content, we have a separate newsletter for The Block Research, which you can sign-up for here. | | | | |
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