December 11, 2020 The top stories in bitcoin, crypto and more – all in one place, delivered daily By Daniel Kuhn If you were forwarded this newsletter and would like to receive it, sign up here.
Top shelf There are more bitcoin "whales" than ever, and new data shows how they drive market movements. MassMutual is the latest legacy institution to buy into bitcoin. And the number of Ethereum developers is growing at a breathless pace.
Whales and krill Mass buy
Developer doozy Gone public Corporate backers
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Quick bites
Most influential Looking to make someone (or just yourself) happy this yuletide holiday? Give the gift of crypto art.
As part of the launch of Most Influential 2020 list, CoinDesk is auctioning off 12 original artworks that accompany this year’s list of honorees.
The NFTs were created by leading digital artists including Alotta Money, XCopy, Osinachi, Matt Kane, Sarah Zucker, Yonat Vaks and Olive Allen. They are available at Nifty Gateway and Super Rare (Matt Kane). The artists will donate 50% of the proceeds to charities of their choice, under an arrangement with cryptocurrency donations company The Giving Block.
Learn more about the Most Influential 2020 NFT art auction, running to Dec. 31. 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 Whale pack The number of wallets holding at least 1,000 bitcoins now stands at a record high of 2,052, up 30% on the year, according to Chainalysis data. The so-called rich list, the number of individual addresses holding at least 1,000 coins, is also up over 7% to 2,270. The metric reached a record high of 2,274 on Nov. 24, according to data source Glassnode. “That’s a big increase in the wealthiest wallets and provides evidence that institutional investors have entered the market,” Chainlysis noted in its weekly market intel newsletter dated Dec. 10. That said, smaller holders have also increased: This year, wallets holding at least five BTC have increased by 8,842 (4%) to 234,408. Monthly review The latest CoinDesk Monthly Review compares bitcoin’s November 2020 rally with the asset’s market and network performance three years ago and looks at some metrics on the progress toward the launch of Ethereum 2.0. Download the free CoinDesk Research November 2020 Review.
At stake First, rights. Ethereum developer Virgil Griffith stands accused of… what exactly?
Last year, Griffith, a 37-year-old American computer science doctorate, was arrested and detained for violating U.S. sanctions against North Korea, after he travelled to the nation to present on the decentralized, public blockchain Ethereum. The Ethereum Foundation staffer and research scientist presented on how to utilize this open cryptocurrency network for local and international transfers, at the Pyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference. This information – essentially that ether is uncensorable – is decidedly in the public domain. He did not receive an honorarium for his presentation.
Now, Griffith’s attorneys are left wondering what the boy genius is accused of. In a new court filing the defense is requesting “particulars” about what services Griffith allegedly provided, who else was involved and how these services violated U.S. law. (He traveled to the nation even after his request for permission to do so from the State Department had been denied.)
“The defense should not be forced to use a decoder ring on over 6,800 pages of discovery – much of which has been heavily redacted by the government – to discern the basic information that should be present in every indictment: what crimes were actually alleged to have been committed, by whom, and where,” they write.
So what’s at stake? Only the civil liberties guaranteed and protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The count against Griffith is conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, as well as some associated legal violations. Though prosecutors were shy of specifics. (The IEEPA provides broad executive powers to place economic sanctions on individuals, businesses, governments and other entities – thereby prohibiting U.S. persons and corporations from dealing with sanctioned nations.)
Notably, under the 1988 Berman Amendment, the IEEPA prohibits sanctioning the transfer of information or “informational materials.” That includes the type of speech freely available online. The question now is whether Griffith provided a service to the North Korean government, a point his defense has rebuked.
Even if it’s granted that Griffith traveled to a sanctioned nation – a big taboo – and broke defense mandates limiting the type of “services” or information one can provide to an adversarial nation – it’s likely the information Griffith presented on would not be sanctionable.
Griffith’s presentation was titled “Blockchain and Peace,” and according to the complaint it addressed “how a blockchain technology, including a ‘smart contract,’ could be used to benefit” North Korea.
As the FBI itself has said, it contained “basic concepts accessible on the internet.”
Mastering Blockchain "Mastering Blockchain: Unlocking the Power of Cryptocurrencies, Smart Contracts, and Decentralized Applications" by Daniel Cawrey and Lorne Lantz from O’Reilly Media is a masterful guide on the essentials of blockchain technology, presenting history, breaking down fundamentals, and providing real-life implementations covering the space with clarity and precision based on years of research and conversations with the space's leading minds.
In partnership with the Silicon Valley Bitcoin and Silicon Valley Ethereum meetup groups, CoinDesk celebrates Cawrey and Lantz's book launch with a fireside chat with the authors and CoinDesk's first-ever VR event on Dec. 15, 2020, at 7 p.m. ET.
Join us for the CoinDesk Live event streaming on CoinDesk.com, YouTube and Twitter as we chat about the book, socialize in VR and discuss the future of IRL and virtual events. Learn more.
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