 January 8, 2021  The top stories in bitcoin, crypto and more – all in one place, delivered daily. Sponsored By:  By Daniel Kuhn If you were forwarded this newsletter and would like to receive it, sign up here.
Top shelf Ripple tried to settle with the SEC before the watchdog’s XRP-related lawsuit. The “bitcoin rich list” has more names than ever. Grayscale reports an uptick in interest from pension funds and Coinbase makes an acquisition to beef up its institutional bitcoin offerings. It has been a huge news day, so buckle up.
Frontrunning action Pensions or bust Rich list grows First acquisition of the year Going public?
SPONSORED BY NEXO  Your digital assets deserve a savings account in their BEST INTEREST. Leading crypto lender Nexo treats you, your crypto and your fiat to industry-best Crypto & Fiat services, featuring:
* Up to 12% interest on digital assets, paid out daily! * Yields available on BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH, XRP, XLM, EOS, TRX, LINK, BNB, PAXG, USDT, USDC, TUSD, PAX, DAI, HUSD, GBP and EUR. * No minimum or maximum limits on funds deposited, offering infinite opportunities to earn. * Full flexibility with no lock-in periods, so you can withdraw your funds anytime. * #ZeroFees on all transactions. * Military-grade wallet security and top-tier insurance on all custodial assets with SOC 2 Type 2 certified crypto custodian BitGo.
 Big year Bitcoin. DeFi. Ethereum 2.0. The biggest trends in crypto this year began to move the needle in the rest of the world. Multi-billion dollar funds bought bitcoin as an inflation hedge. Institutions began discussing the merits of decentralization. And the banking sector warmed to crypto.
CoinDesk’s 2020 Year in Review covers the major events, ideas and themes in crypto, and why they matter. The series is a comprehensive collection of op-eds, essays and interviews from some of the biggest names in crypto, published throughout the month.
Quick bites
 The list Who moved the needle on crypto this year? What were the projects that mattered? Who shattered the glass ceiling and broke the mold?
From DeFi to bitcoin's late year surge, 2020 was full of big stories, trends and personalities. We've unveiled CoinDesk’s 2020 Most Influential list, a selection of 12 people who helped push the industry forward this year. See who made the list.
Market intel What Joe Biden’s $3 trillion stimulus package means for bitcoin  Q4 If the 2020 Q1 was the quarter of market turmoil, Q2 the bitcoin halving and Q3 the explosion of stablecoins and decentralized finance applications, Q4 was the quarter of institutional FOMO for bitcoin and of Ethereum launching the first phase of its ambitious migration to a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain. The latest CoinDesk Quarterly Review looks at the performance of bitcoin and ether compared to macro assets and other crypto assets, and at their progress, milestones and value drivers over the past three months. Download the free report.
At stake Yesterday, Facebook made the unprecedented decision to ban a sitting president, Donald Trump, from its services for his role in inciting the revolt that damaged the U.S. Capitol. Facebook and other social media firms have had four years to discuss how to balance publishing information in the public interest (because President Trump said it) when much of it is not factual.
Streaming service Twitch, e-commerce platform Shopify and others also banned the president, at least until he leaves office on Jan. 20. The president's Twitter feed, meanwhile, was suspended for 12 hours, Jan. 6-7.
Many opponents have long called for Trump to be booted from his online bully pulpits, where he often commands a large audience (88.7 million people follow @realDonaldTrump, his personal Twitter account). Explaining the decision, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the "current context is now fundamentally different, involving use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government.”
Some in the crypto world see it differently.
“I think what is happening right now is absolutely ridiculous. One big circus show setting us up for the last act – total control of our thoughts and actions. Twitter and Facebook are mass scams. No matter what your political view, the amount of heavy-handed censorship is, let’s say, suspicious,” Josh Petty, founder and CEO of the alternative social media site Twetch, told Blockchain Bites over email.
It’s old hat to call crypto a libertarian insurrectionary movement, though there are some key areas where the two ideologies align – primarily in championing individualism and all the "classically liberal" rights associated with that. This means freedom of ownership, freedom of speech and freedom to “exit” from the crowd.
Instead of erecting laws to protect these freedoms, blockchains create cryptographic proofs to ensure certain conditions are always met. These are monetary assurances – like Bitcoin’s hard-capped supply, Ethereum’s infinite programmability or Solana’s blitzkrieg settlement speed – as well as cultural, like the idea that finance and speech should be uncensorable.
“People really value censorship resistance, both for themselves and others, to the degree where it can seem irrational to bystanders,” pseudonymous crypto researcher Hasu wrote in November, in a blog post titled, “Exploring Bitcoin’s core values and why we defend them.”
Blockchains, by connecting people directly, can assure certain freedoms that are often occluded when intermediaries get involved. If you believe that everyone has the right to a platform online, then you’d probably disagree with Facebook’s decision to ban Trump – regardless of the circumstances.
“Social media companies have no direct role in a democracy,” Petty said. “Social media companies, despite using the word ‘social’ to describe them, are private enterprises serving customers and their self-interests.”
Indeed, these bans could be seen as fatuous branding exercises. Trump has less than two weeks in office before a new president is sworn in, and many prominent figures in Congress and elsewhere are calling for his immediate removal.
While the hardline, anti-censorship approach has neat answers for complicated questions, in practice it often runs into just as many sticky situations.
Today, following news reports and a Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) investigation that found “white supremacists and neo-fascists” are using the streaming platform DLive, owned by Justin Sun’s Tron, the blockchain-based platform will take steps to suspend and ban streamers found in violation of its community rules.
"The DLive team actively are taking actions regarding streamers who are found to be part of or participants in the incident at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., on [Jan. 6] including but not limited to account suspension, removal of past broadcasts, freezing their earnings and abilities to cash out. The donation and paid subscriptions will be refunded to the accounts from which they originated,” a DLive press release reads.
Then again, DLive’s primary selling point was not censorship resistance but its rewards program.
Who won #CryptoTwitter? 
ATTENTION: Scammers have been sending fraudulent emails with links to sites disguised to look like coindesk.com. If you are in doubt about a link, type https://www.coindesk.com directly into your browser; do not copy and paste. Remember, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Copyright © 2020 CoinDesk, All rights reserved.
250 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10003, USA You can manage your preferences here or unsubscribe from all CoinDesk email. |