Month: June 2021

Episode 12 – Regulatory Capture and Regulatory Arbitrage: Sleeping with your Enemy — Crypto Critics’ Corner

https://cryptocriticscorner.com/2021/06/30/episode-12-regulatory-capture-and-regulatory-arbitrage-sleeping-with-your-enemy/ https://anchor.fm/s/4fa795b4/podcast/rss https://youtu.be/wJMNXS9qK0I In this episode Cas and I discuss the new tendency for cryptocurrency businesses to hire regulators and the old tendency to try to avoid regulation at any cost. AnchorSpotifyAppleGoogleOvercastRSS Feed

Episode 11 – El Salvador and Bitcoin — Crypto Critics’ Corner

https://cryptocriticscorner.com/2021/06/28/episode-11-el-salvador-and-bitcoin/ https://anchor.fm/s/4fa795b4/podcast/rss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q5PeWuSBNw In this episode Cas and I discuss the politically, economically, and historically impactful news that El Salvador is adopting Bitcoin as legal tender. AnchorSpotifyAppleGoogleOvercastRSS Feed Cas Piancey provided some additional context on this issue through his reporting at Protos that can be found here: Read this before criticizing El Salvador’s adoption of … Continue reading Episode 11 – El Salvador and Bitcoin — Crypto Critics’ Corner →

Sunday Reads – Things I Found Interesting 2021-06-27

Summary of Bitfinex and Tether Grant Williams wrote the best summary of Bitfinex and Tether I have yet read, it is unfortunately paywalled, but if you would like to subscribe to get access you can go here. (Note: I was given a free copy) If instead you would like to read my introduction you can … Continue reading Sunday Reads – Things I Found Interesting 2021-06-27 →

Episode 10 – This one weird trick will stop you from ever having a bank run!! (never let anyone redeem) — Crypto Critics’ Corner

https://cryptocriticscorner.com/2021/06/21/episode-10-this-one-weird-trick-will-stop-you-from-ever-having-a-bank-run-never-let-anyone-redeem/ https://anchor.fm/s/4fa795b4/podcast/rss https://youtu.be/DFUYD1J8lgQ In this episode Cas and I discuss what is a Tether redemption, what’s a Bitfinex redemption, and why all this talk about redemptions even matters.  AnchorSpotifyAppleGoogleOvercastRSS Feed

Sunday Reads – Things I Found Interesting 2021-06-20

El Salvador Cas Piancey writes about El Salvador making Bitcoin legal tender for Protos Media: https://protos.com/el-salvador-bitcoin-bukele-legal-tender-adoption-read-this/ Ruminations on Cryptocurrency Critics Ben Muenster writes a brilliant piece on the strangeness of cryptocurrency critics for Decrypt. How an eccentric astronomer took down a Russian spy ring Read the wild story about this man who stood opposed to … Continue reading Sunday Reads – Things I Found Interesting 2021-06-20 →

My Appearance on Coffeezilla

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-whuXHSL1Pg I appeared during this video to discuss the history of Bitfinex and Tether executives. To read more about their history: https://bennettftomlin.com/2021/03/27/before-bitfinex-and-tether/ If you would like an introduction to the history of Bitifnex and Tether: https://bennettftomlin.com/2020/12/08/an-introduction-to-the-tether-bitfinex-controversy/

Episode 9 – Shillfluencers (and the unspoken financial epidemic) — Crypto Critics’ Corner

https://cryptocriticscorner.com/2021/06/14/episode-9-shillfluencers-and-the-unspoken-financial-epidemic/ https://anchor.fm/s/4fa795b4/podcast/rss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtwL7VNKrDo&list=PL4_8M4221Zu1s2Vv0CQb1VlzAT22GGt_Z&index=9&t=4s In this episode Cas and I discuss the epidemic of shills in crypto. People getting free tokens or paid to promote tokens in what effectively is a pump and dump scheme.  AnchorSpotifyAppleGoogleOvercastRSS Feed I wrote about the reasons I dislike these tactics from venture capitalists here:

Sunday Reads – Things I Found Interesting 2021-06-13

Books I Read Insomnia - This book by Stephen King is a supernatural thriller (like many of King's books). If you are a fan of King you will likely enjoy this, especially with the references back to Dark Tower and to Derry more broadly. If you are not a fan of King, I think he … Continue reading Sunday Reads – Things I Found Interesting 2021-06-13 →

Why I Have Zero Faith in Crypto Venture Capitalists

Mostly the reason I have zero faith in crypto venture capitalists as an institution is that their primary value add is marketing, their due diligence is a joke, and they are functionally equivalent to the shills we all mock. One of the very first whitepapers I ever analyzed was for the Basis protocol. This protocol … Continue reading Why I Have Zero Faith in Crypto Venture Capitalists →