Weekly Rundown - December 18, 2022
¡Hola!
Quick note—I won’t have a rundown next week or the week after. Big holidays and festivities!
For those who celebrate, have a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy Boxing Day, Akemashite Ōmisoka, and best wishes for a wonderful holiday season and a Happy New Year.
I’ll publish the monthly issue in the next few days and squeeze out an update for premium subscribers before the holiday and at least once more before the end of the year.
Make sure you got my updates from last week:
In last week’s poll, I asked “Do people still ask you about crypto?”
57% said no and of those who said yes, most said not as much as before.
For the 9% of people who said “yes, more than before,” can you tell us what people are talking about when they talk crypto with you?
I’ll have a new poll after the new year.
Non-Fungible Trumptokens
In news that I thought I would only see during a raging bull market, Donald Trump is shilling NFTs of himself.
And they say NFTs are dead.
If you thought this was a parody or deep fake, you didn’t live in the US from 2016 to 2020.
Some punchlines, depending on your view of the man.
Well, he rugged the US, so he might as well rug everybody else, too.
Finally, somebody’s making NFTs great again!
This guy never stops! Pee-pee tapes, pussy grabbing, fake university, tax fraud, January 6, and now he’s selling unregistered securities?
These things are awesome! I’m buying. The floor price is already 2x higher than the sale price!
Wen 2024 campaign NFTs?
Technically, they’re not Trump’s NFTs. He sold the rights to another company. That other company sells the NFTs.
How long until Hilary Clinton creates her own DAO? I hear her governance tokens come with a night in the Lincoln bedroom.
Get free crypto (not an airdrop, exchange, or platform)
With the holiday season in full swing, use Rodeo Money to get some free crypto for buying the stuff you’re already going to buy. You can do this from a page the team set up for me!
When you connect your wallet and shop at any of the retailers listed on my Rodeo page, you get rewards as cashback in MATIC, USDC, or wETH—all delivered straight to your Polygon wallet.
Tap this button to get your rewards.
They didn’t sponsor this newsletter or pay me to say this. I like the business and it’s an easy way to practice doing things on-chain.
In fact, I don’t make any money from Rodeo—I pass along all of my Rodeo rewards to you. The Rodeo team batches my portion and your portion as a single payout to whatever wallet you use when you visit the website.
In case you have any interest in messaging the FTX debacle, repeat what Geoff Bennett says in this interview.
You’ll hear a lot of this and similar messaging from the professional class and people who moved from legacy finance to crypto. It’s true, sensible, and realistic.
Quick note on Binance to help you sort through the news, rumors, and video clips.
Binance has several problems:
Users doubt that it holds all of the crypto they deposited. Some reports claim Binance has 101% of user funds while others claim it has only 99% of user funds. While 99% should cover all requests for withdrawals, it’s not 100% as promised. Also, at Binance’s scale, that totals up to $500 million, no small sum. And if the 101% number is correct, where’d the extra 1% come from and why is it there?
Its business lost roughly $500 million on FTT tokens and faces a possible $2 billion clawback from FTX and related activities. Does it have enough money to cover these losses?
US government is investigating Binance for money laundering and possible other crimes. Everybody’s known about this investigation for a long time but it’s only now making the rounds among the press because a “source” told Reuters that US law enforcement agents are close to filing charges and have offered plea deals to Binance’s executives. What happens if the US government takes down CZ, his executives, or Binance itself?
Given the overall climate, you can understand why people are concerned.
Did Binance mix user funds and business funds? Why did wallets from Binance (the parent entity) transact with at least one Binance.US wallet? Binance.US is supposed to be an independent entity barred by US law from CZ’s oversight. What were those transactions about? What does any of this mean for Binance Smart Chain and BNB tokens?
If somebody knows, can you leave a comment? All I see is speculation and conjecture.
Jobs Corner
ClubRare | Social Media Manager | Link to position
Flashbots | Senior DevOps Engineer | Link to position
Evmos | Product Manager | Link to position
Anchorage Digital | Bank Compliance Associate | Link to position
Paradigm | Senior Controller | Link to position
Interlay | Dapp Engineer | Link to position
Outlier Ventures | Product Engineer | Link to position
Consensys | Head of Data | Link to position
Celestia | QA Engineer | Link to position
These jobs come from the ToolsForCrypto newsletter. If you’d like to post a vacancy here (for free), email mark@markhelfman.com.
Relax and enjoy the ride!
Weekly Rundown - December 18, 2022
Thanks a lot for this piece Mark! I'm quite a new subscriber, but I have to admit that I enjoy both: the content and your style of writing - both are brilliant to me ;)
Wishing you and your closest ones all the best for the holiday season and a Happy New Year :)
Numerous thanks Mark for another year of a consistent high quality news letter, valuable information, and useable analysis. In a space that ironically was supposed to be above the need for trust, which now needs it more than ever from relying on the legacy financial services, thus destroying most of it, you continue to provide us with your take on how you see it and not on what you think we want to hear. That is deeply appreciated.
Likewise, wishing you, your family, and friends all the best this holiday season and throughout the New Year. Continue to give and take care.