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Bitcoin (BTC) - $19,193.98 |
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Prices as of 10/14/22 @ 7:46 p.m. UTC |
Welcome to Crypto Long & Short! Another day in a bear market, another “builders keep building” article for your inbox. But it’s only natural because I attended TABConf – a developer-focused Bitcoin conference in Atlanta, Georgia – last week. I simply couldn’t have avoided the builders if I tried (which I did, at one point). The timing wasn’t exactly great for an individual (me) whose job (which includes writing this investor-focused newsletter) requires them to sit at the intersection of everything bitcoin and crypto touches (markets, business, policy, technology) given last week was Consumer Price Index (CPI) week. Early Thursday morning, leading up to the CPI report release, bitcoin’s price fell from $18,796 to $18,606. Then, at 8:30 a.m. ET, when the CPI numbers were officially released, bitcoin’s price fell from $18,978 to $18,225. When that happened, I was sitting among a concentrated group of bitcoin developers – people whose financial well being and careers were critically tied to this asset that just lost 4% of its value … and … no one reacted? It was CPI day, markets were reeling and I was stuck with people who simply didn’t care. So with that, I want to spend this week diving into this duality and the classic trope: Builders will keep building no matter what. – George Kaloudis |
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Who Even Cares About the Markets? Builders Will Keep Building No Matter What. |
Kickoff event for TABConf hosted in the NCR Corporation’s Midtown Atlanta Headquarters (George Kaloudis/CoinDesk) |
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While volatility in bitcoin and traditional markets following a hot CPI report on Thursday, I was in downtown Atlanta at the Georgia World Congress Center at TABConf, a developer-focused Bitcoin conference. I was sitting in a workshop titled “Attacking Lightning,” parsing what was going on in the markets. And these weren’t casual bitcoiners – in general, these people work full time or are vying to work full time on Bitcoin. But that’s precisely the point central to this ideal: Builders will keep building no matter what. Instead of waxing poetic about why the price of bitcoin “doesn’t matter,” with conference goers we spent time trying to break bitcoin’s commerce layer in the Lightning Network (which we did), listening to Hannah Rosenberg talk through how Taro works and playing a game with Jeremy Rubin using bitcoin smart contracts after Keagan McClelland and Cara Ponzini taught attendees about Judica. I think this matters a great deal, and I’m certainly not alone in echoing the following sentiment. Amid poor price performance of bitcoin, there’s not much for everyone to be excited about. There’s no fear of missing out on untold riches. There aren’t many Bitcoin Tourists here right now. A lot of people will say, “Bear markets are for building.” And so many people say it so often that it loses its meaning. But I’m still going to say it again here because it’s important: Builders will keep building no matter what. Here’s why it particularly matters right now. We’ve already seen over $700 million stolen from decentralized finance (DeFi) hacks in October, and while the Bitcoin protocol hasn’t been hacked (nor am I implying that’s even possible), there’s certainly less attention on Bitcoin than there was when the price of bitcoin (the currency) was over $68,000. So while the rest of the world is not paying attention, the developers who work on Bitcoin every day are spending time breaking things so that they can fix things to make Bitcoin even stronger. That’s a good thing for Bitcoin’s future, and anyone who thinks Bitcoin might have a chance at long-term viability should thank their lucky stars that the bear market is giving the builders time to build. Read the full article here. |
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Ether became deflationary for the first time since the Merge. - TAKEAWAY: Crypto exchange Coinbase reported Thursday ETH became deflationary. More ether was burned verifying transactions than was created in the same period, which led to a reduction of 0.13% in supply over the week, equivalent to roughly 4,000 tokens. The rate of new ether creation has fallen by nearly 90% since the Merge. The report said an Ethereum-based token project called XEN triggered ether’s deflationary burn rate when it fueled a large spike in network traffic last weekend. Read more here.
Partnering with Coinbase, Google will start accepting crypto payment for cloud services. - TAKEAWAY: On Tuesday, the tech behemoth said it will receive crypto payment via an integration with crypto exchange Coinbase. Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said, “We want to make building in Web3 faster and easier, and this partnership with Coinbase helps developers get one step closer to that goal.” Read more here.
Bitcoin’s mining difficulty rose to an all-time high. - TAKEAWAY: The difficulty level rose 13.55% from the last adjustment. Rising difficulty paints a dreary picture for bitcoin miners who are already feeling the squeeze of weak bitcoin prices and higher energy costs. For example, London-based miner Argo Blockchain (ARBK) was forced to raise $27 million to ease liquidity pressures. Argo Blockchain CEO Peter Wall said, “Our profitability has been squeezed from both sides from higher energy prices to lower bitcoin price; that's resulted in a cash crunch for Argo.” Read more here.
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Podcasts Worth Listening To |
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