More on Web3 & Crypto

Robert Kim
4 years ago
Crypto Legislation Might Progress Beyond Talk in 2022
Financial regulators have for years attempted to apply existing laws to the multitude of issues created by digital assets. In 2021, leading federal regulators and members of Congress have begun to call for legislation to address these issues. As a result, 2022 may be the year when federal legislation finally addresses digital asset issues that have been growing since the mining of the first Bitcoin block in 2009.
Digital Asset Regulation in the Absence of Legislation
So far, Congress has left the task of addressing issues created by digital assets to regulatory agencies. Although a Congressional Blockchain Caucus formed in 2016, House and Senate members introduced few bills addressing digital assets until 2018. As of October 2021, Congress has not amended federal laws on financial regulation, which were last significantly revised by the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010, to address digital asset issues.
In the absence of legislation, issues that do not fit well into existing statutes have created problems. An example is the legal status of digital assets, which can be considered to be either securities or commodities, and can even shift from one to the other over time. Years after the SEC’s 2017 report applying the definition of a security to digital tokens, the SEC and the CFTC have yet to clarify the distinction between securities and commodities for the thousands of digital assets in existence.
SEC Chair Gary Gensler has called for Congress to act, stating in August, “We need additional Congressional authorities to prevent transactions, products, and platforms from falling between regulatory cracks.” Gensler has reached out to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Ma.), who has expressed her own concerns about the need for legislation.
Legislation on Digital Assets in 2021
While regulators and members of Congress talked about the need for legislation, and the debate over cryptocurrency tax reporting in the 2021 infrastructure bill generated headlines, House and Senate bills proposing specific solutions to various issues quietly started to emerge.
Digital Token Sales
Several House bills attempt to address securities law barriers to digital token sales—some of them by building on ideas proposed by regulators in past years.
Exclusion from the definition of a security. Congressional Blockchain Caucus members have been introducing bills to exclude digital tokens from the definition of a security since 2018, and they have revived those bills in 2021. They include the Token Taxonomy Act of 2021 (H.R. 1628), successor to identically named bills in 2018 and 2019, and the Securities Clarity Act (H.R. 4451), successor to a 2020 namesake.
Safe harbor. SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce proposed a regulatory safe harbor for token sales in 2020, and two 2021 bills have proposed statutory safe harbors. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), Republican leader of the House Financial Services Committee, introduced a Clarity for Digital Tokens Act of 2021 (H.R. 5496) that would amend the Securities Act to create a safe harbor providing a grace period of exemption from Securities Act registration requirements. The Digital Asset Market Structure and Investor Protection Act (H.R. 4741) from Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) would amend the Securities Exchange Act to define a new type of security—a “digital asset security”—and add issuers of digital asset securities to an existing provision for delayed registration of securities.
Stablecoins
Stablecoins—digital currencies linked to the value of the U.S. dollar or other fiat currencies—have not yet been the subject of regulatory action, although Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell have each underscored the need to create a regulatory framework for them. The Beyer bill proposes to create a regulatory regime for stablecoins by amending Title 31 of the U.S. Code. Treasury Department approval would be required for any “digital asset fiat-based stablecoin” to be issued or used, under an application process to be established by Treasury in consultation with the Federal Reserve, the SEC, and the CFTC.
Serious consideration for any of these proposals in the current session of Congress may be unlikely. A spate of autumn bills on crypto ransom payments (S. 2666, S. 2923, S. 2926, H.R. 5501) shows that Congress is more inclined to pay attention first to issues that are more spectacular and less arcane. Moreover, the arcaneness of digital asset regulatory issues is likely only to increase further, now that major industry players such as Coinbase and Andreessen Horowitz are starting to roll out their own regulatory proposals.
Digital Dollar vs. Digital Yuan
Impetus to pass legislation on another type of digital asset, a central bank digital currency (CBDC), may come from a different source: rivalry with China.
China established itself as a world leader in developing a CBDC with a pilot project launched in 2020, and in 2021, the People’s Bank of China announced that its CBDC will be used at the Beijing Winter Olympics in February 2022. Republican Senators responded by calling for the U.S. Olympic Committee to forbid use of China’s CBDC by U.S. athletes in Beijing and introducing a bill (S. 2543) to require a study of its national security implications.
The Beijing Olympics could motivate a legislative mandate to accelerate implementation of a U.S. digital dollar, which the Federal Reserve has been in the process of considering in 2021. Antecedents to such legislation already exist. A House bill sponsored by 46 Republicans (H.R. 4792) has a provision that would require the Treasury Department to assess China’s CBDC project and report on the status of Federal Reserve work on a CBDC, and the Beyer bill includes a provision amending the Federal Reserve Act to authorize issuing a digital dollar.
Both parties are likely to support creating a digital dollar. The Covid-19 pandemic made a digital dollar for delivery of relief payments a popular idea in 2020, and House Democrats introduced bills with provisions for creating one in 2020 and 2021. Bipartisan support for a bill on a digital dollar, based on concerns both foreign and domestic in nature, could result.
International rivalry and bipartisan support may make the digital dollar a gateway issue for digital asset legislation in 2022. Legislative work on a digital dollar may open the door for considering further digital asset issues—including the regulatory issues that have been emerging for years—in 2022 and beyond.

Tim Denning
3 years ago
The Dogecoin millionaire mysteriously disappeared.
The American who bought a meme cryptocurrency.
Cryptocurrency is the financial underground.
I love it. But there’s one thing I hate: scams. Over the last few years the Dogecoin cryptocurrency saw massive gains.
Glauber Contessoto overreacted. He shared his rags-to-riches cryptocurrency with the media.
He's only wealthy on paper. No longer Dogecoin millionaire.
Here's what he's doing now. It'll make you rethink cryptocurrency investing.
Strange beginnings
Glauber once had a $36,000-a-year job.
He grew up poor and wanted to make his mother proud. Tesla was his first investment. He bought GameStop stock after Reddit boosted it.
He bought whatever was hot.
He was a young investor. Memes, not research, influenced his decisions.
Elon Musk (aka Papa Elon) began tweeting about Dogecoin.
Doge is a 2013 cryptocurrency. One founder is Australian. He insists it's funny.
He was shocked anyone bought it LOL.
Doge is a Shiba Inu-themed meme. Now whenever I see a Shiba Inu, I think of Doge.
Elon helped drive up the price of Doge by talking about it in 2020 and 2021 (don't take investment advice from Elon; he's joking and gaslighting you).
Glauber caved. He invested everything in Doge. He borrowed from family and friends. He maxed out his credit card to buy more Doge. Yuck.
Internet dubbed him a genius. Slumdog millionaire and The Dogefather were nicknames. Elon pumped Doge on social media.
Good times.
From $180,000 to $1,000,000+
TikTok skyrocketed Doge's price.
Reddit fueled up. Influencers recommended buying Doge because of its popularity. Glauber's motto:
Scared money doesn't earn.
Glauber was no broke ass anymore.
His $180,000 Dogecoin investment became $1M. He championed investing. He quit his dumb job like a rebellious millennial.
A puppy dog meme captivated the internet.
Rise and fall
Whenever I invest in anything I ask myself “what utility does this have?”
Dogecoin is useless.
You buy it for the cute puppy face and hope others will too, driving up the price. All cryptocurrencies fell in 2021's second half.
Central banks raised interest rates, and inflation became a pain.
Dogecoin fell more than others. 90% decline.
Glauber’s Dogecoin is now worth $323K. Still no sales. His dog god is unshakeable. Confidence rocks. Dogecoin millionaire recently said...
“I should have sold some.”
Yes, sir.
He now avoids speculative cryptocurrencies like Dogecoin and focuses on Bitcoin and Ethereum.
I've long said this. Starbucks is building on Ethereum.
It's useful. Useful. Developers use Ethereum daily. Investing makes you wiser over time, like the Dogecoin millionaire.
When risk b*tch slaps you, humility follows, as it did for me when I lost money.
You have to lose money to make money. Few understand.
Dogecoin's omissions
You might be thinking Dogecoin is crap.
I'll take a contrarian stance. Dogecoin does nothing, but it has a strong community. Dogecoin dominates internet memes.
It's silly.
Not quite. The message of crypto that many people forget is that it’s a change in business model.
Businesses create products and services, then advertise to find customers. Crypto Web3 works backwards. A company builds a fanbase but sells them nothing.
Once the community reaches MVC (minimum viable community), a business can be formed.
Community members are relational versus transactional. They're invested in a cause and care about it (typically ownership in the business via crypto).
In this new world, Dogecoin has the most important feature.
Summary
While Dogecoin does have a community I still dislike it.
It's all shady. Anything Elon Musk recommends is a bad investment (except SpaceX & Tesla are great companies).
Dogecoin Millionaire has wised up and isn't YOLOing into more dog memes.
Don't follow the crowd or the hype. Investing is a long-term sport based on fundamentals and research.
Since Ethereum's inception, I've spent 10,000 hours researching.
Dogecoin will be the foundation of something new, like Pets.com at the start of the dot-com revolution. But I doubt Doge will boom.
Be safe!

CyberPunkMetalHead
3 years ago
It's all about the ego with Terra 2.0.
UST depegs and LUNA crashes 99.999% in a fraction of the time it takes the Moon to orbit the Earth.
Fat Man, a Terra whistle-blower, promises to expose Do Kwon's dirty secrets and shady deals.
The Terra community has voted to relaunch Terra LUNA on a new blockchain. The Terra 2.0 Pheonix-1 blockchain went live on May 28, 2022, and people were airdropped the new LUNA, now called LUNA, while the old LUNA became LUNA Classic.
Does LUNA deserve another chance? To answer this, or at least start a conversation about the Terra 2.0 chain's advantages and limitations, we must assess its fundamentals, ideology, and long-term vision.
Whatever the result, our analysis must be thorough and ruthless. A failure of this magnitude cannot happen again, so we must magnify every potential breaking point by 10.
Will UST and LUNA holders be compensated in full?
The obvious. First, and arguably most important, is to restore previous UST and LUNA holders' bags.
Terra 2.0 has 1,000,000,000,000 tokens to distribute.
25% of a community pool
Holders of pre-attack LUNA: 35%
10% of aUST holders prior to attack
Holders of LUNA after an attack: 10%
UST holders as of the attack: 20%
Every LUNA and UST holder has been compensated according to the above proposal.
According to self-reported data, the new chain has 210.000.000 tokens and a $1.3bn marketcap. LUNC and UST alone lost $40bn. The new token must fill this gap. Since launch:
LUNA holders collectively own $1b worth of LUNA if we subtract the 25% community pool airdrop from the current market cap and assume airdropped LUNA was never sold.
At the current supply, the chain must grow 40 times to compensate holders. At the current supply, LUNA must reach $240.
LUNA needs a full-on Bull Market to make LUNC and UST holders whole.
Who knows if you'll be whole? From the time you bought to the amount and price, there are too many variables to determine if Terra can cover individual losses.
The above distribution doesn't consider individual cases. Terra didn't solve individual cases. It would have been huge.
What does LUNA offer in terms of value?
UST's marketcap peaked at $18bn, while LUNC's was $41bn. LUNC and UST drove the Terra chain's value.
After it was confirmed (again) that algorithmic stablecoins are bad, Terra 2.0 will no longer support them.
Algorithmic stablecoins contributed greatly to Terra's growth and value proposition. Terra 2.0 has no product without algorithmic stablecoins.
Terra 2.0 has an identity crisis because it has no actual product. It's like Volkswagen faking carbon emission results and then stopping car production.
A project that has already lost the trust of its users and nearly all of its value cannot survive without a clear and in-demand use case.
Do Kwon, how about him?
Oh, the Twitter-caller-poor? Who challenges crypto billionaires to break his LUNA chain? Who dissolved Terra Labs South Korea before depeg? Arrogant guy?
That's not a good image for LUNA, especially when making amends. I think he should step down and let a nicer person be Terra 2.0's frontman.
The verdict
Terra has a terrific community with an arrogant, unlikeable leader. The new LUNA chain must grow 40 times before it can start making up its losses, and even then, not everyone's losses will be covered.
I won't invest in Terra 2.0 or other algorithmic stablecoins in the near future. I won't be near any Do Kwon-related project within 100 miles. My opinion.
Can Terra 2.0 be saved? Comment below.
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1eth1da
3 years ago
6 Rules to build a successful NFT Community in 2022

Too much NFT, Discord, and shitposting.
How do you choose?
How do you recruit more members to join your NFT project?
In 2021, a successful NFT project required:
Monkey/ape artwork
Twitter and Discord bot-filled
Roadmap overpromise
Goal was quick cash.
2022 and the years after will change that.
These are 6 Rules for a Strong NFT Community in 2022:
THINK LONG TERM
This relates to roadmap planning. Hype and dumb luck may drive NFT projects (ahem, goblins) but rarely will your project soar.
Instead, consider sustainability.
Plan your roadmap based on your team's abilities.
Do what you're already doing, but with NFTs, make it bigger and better.
You shouldn't copy a project's roadmap just because it was profitable.
This will lead to over-promising, team burnout, and an RUG NFT project.
OFFER VALUE
Building a great community starts with giving.
Why are musicians popular?
Because they offer entertainment for everyone, a random person becomes a fan, and more fans become a cult.
That's how you should approach your community.
TEAM UP
A great team helps.
An NFT project could have 3 or 2 people.
Credibility trumps team size.
Make sure your team can answer community questions, resolve issues, and constantly attend to them.
Don't overwork and burn out.
Your community will be able to recognize that you are trying too hard and give up on the project.
BUILD A GREAT PRODUCT
Bored Ape Yacht Club altered the NFT space.
Cryptopunks transformed NFTs.
Many others did, including Okay Bears.
What made them that way?
Because they answered a key question.
What is my NFT supposed to be?
Before planning art, this question must be answered.
NFTs can't be just jpegs.
What does it represent?
Is it a Metaverse-ready project?
What blockchain are you going to be using and why?
Set some ground rules for yourself. This helps your project's direction.
These questions will help you and your team set a direction for blockchain, NFT, and Web3 technology.
EDUCATE ON WEB3
The more the team learns about Web3 technology, the more they can offer their community.
Think tokens, metaverse, cross-chain interoperability and more.
BUILD A GREAT COMMUNITY
Several projects mistreat their communities.
They treat their community like "customers" and try to sell them NFT.
Providing Whitelists and giveaways aren't your only community-building options.
Think bigger.
Consider them family and friends, not wallets.
Consider them fans.
These are some tips to start your NFT project.

Darius Foroux
2 years ago
My financial life was changed by a single, straightforward mental model.
Prioritize big-ticket purchases
I've made several spending blunders. I get sick thinking about how much money I spent.
My financial mental model was poor back then.
Stoicism and mindfulness keep me from attaching to those feelings. It still hurts.
Until four or five years ago, I bought a new winter jacket every year.
Ten years ago, I spent twice as much. Now that I have a fantastic, warm winter parka, I don't even consider acquiring another one. No more spending. I'm not looking for jackets either.
Saving time and money by spending well is my thinking paradigm.
The philosophy is expressed in most languages. Cheap is expensive in the Netherlands. This applies beyond shopping.
In this essay, I will offer three examples of how this mental paradigm transformed my financial life.
Publishing books
In 2015, I presented and positioned my first book poorly.
I called the book Huge Life Success and made a funny Canva cover in 30 minutes. This:
That looks nothing like my present books. No logo or style. The book felt amateurish.
The book started bothering me a few weeks after publication. The advice was good, but it didn't appear professional. I studied the book business extensively.
I created a style for all my designs. Branding. Win Your Inner Wars was reissued a year later.
Title, cover, and description changed. Rearranging the chapters improved readability.
Seven years later, the book sells hundreds of copies a month. That taught me a lot.
Rushing to finish a project is enticing. Send it and move forward.
Avoid rushing everything. Relax. Develop your projects. Perform well. Perform the job well.
My first novel was underfunded and underworked. A bad book arrived. I then invested time and money in writing the greatest book I could.
That book still sells.
Traveling
I hate travel. Airports, flights, trains, and lines irritate me.
But, I enjoy traveling to beautiful areas.
I do it strangely. I make up travel rules. I never go to airports in summer. I hate being near airports on holidays. Unworthy.
No vacation packages for me. Those airline packages with a flight, shuttle, and hotel. I've had enough.
I try to avoid crowds and popular spots. July Paris? Nuts and bolts, please. Christmas in NYC? No, please keep me sane.
I fly business class behind. I accept upgrades upon check-in. I prefer driving. I drove from the Netherlands to southern Spain.
Thankfully, no lines. What if travel costs more? Thus? I enjoy it from the start. I start traveling then.
I rarely travel since I'm so difficult. One great excursion beats several average ones.
Personal effectiveness
New apps, tools, and strategies intrigue most productivity professionals.
No.
I researched years ago. I spent years investigating productivity in university.
I bought books, courses, applications, and tools. It was expensive and time-consuming.
Im finished. Productivity no longer costs me time or money. OK. I worked on it once and now follow my strategy.
I avoid new programs and systems. My stuff works. Why change winners?
Spending wisely saves time and money.
Spending wisely means spending once. Many people ignore productivity. It's understudied. No classes.
Some assume reading a few articles or a book is enough. Productivity is personal. You need a personal system.
Time invested is one-time. You can trust your system for life once you find it.
Concentrate on the expensive choices.
Life's short. Saving money quickly is enticing.
Spend less on groceries today. True. That won't fix your finances.
Adopt a lifestyle that makes you affluent over time. Consider major choices.
Are they causing long-term poverty? Are you richer?
Leasing cars comes to mind. The automobile costs a fortune today. The premium could accomplish a million nice things.
Focusing on important decisions makes life easier. Consider your future. You want to improve next year.

Anton Franzen
3 years ago
This is the driving force for my use of NFTs, which will completely transform the world.
Its not a fuc*ing fad.
It's not about boring monkeys or photos as nfts; that's just what's been pushed up and made a lot of money. The technology underlying those ridiculous nft photos will one day prove your house and automobile ownership and tell you where your banana came from. Are you ready for web3? Soar!
People don't realize that absolutely anything can and will be part of the blockchain and smart contracts, making them even better. I'll tell you a secret: it will and is happening.
Why?
Why is something blockchain-based a good idea? So let’s speak about cars!
So a new Tesla car is manufactured, and when you buy it, it is bound to an NFT on the blockchain that proves current ownership. The NFT in the smart contract can contain some data about the current owner of the car and some data about the car's status, such as the number of miles driven, the car's overall quality, and so on, as well as a reference to a digital document bound to the NFT that has more information.
Now, 40 years from now, if you want to buy a used automobile, you can scan the car's serial number to view its NFT and see all of its history, each owner, how long they owned it, if it had damages, and more. Since it's on the blockchain, it can't be tampered with.
When you're ready to buy it, the owner posts it for sale, you buy it, and it's sent to your wallet. 5 seconds to change owner, 100% safe and verifiable.
Incorporate insurance logic into the car contract. If you crashed, your car's smart contract would take money from your insurance contract and deposit it in an insurance company wallet.
It's limitless. Your funds may be used by investors to provide insurance as they profit from everyone's investments.
Or suppose all car owners in a country deposit a fixed amount of money into an insurance smart contract that promises if something happens, we'll take care of it. It could be as little as $100-$500 per year, and in a country with 10 million people, maybe 3 million would do that, which would be $500 000 000 in that smart contract and it would be used by the insurance company to invest in assets or take a cut, literally endless possibilities.
Instead of $300 per month, you may pay $300 per year to be covered if something goes wrong, and that may include multiple insurances.
What about your grocery store banana, though?
Yes that too.
You can scan a banana to learn its complete history. You'll be able to see where it was cultivated, every middleman in the supply chain, and hopefully the banana's quality, farm, and ingredients used.
If you want locally decent bananas, you can only buy them, offering you transparency and options. I believe it will be an online marketplace where farmers publish their farms and products for trust and transparency. You might also buy bananas from the farmer.
And? Food security to finish the article. If an order of bananas included a toxin, you could easily track down every banana from the same origin and supply chain and uncover the root cause. This is a tremendous thing that will save lives and have a big impact; did you realize that 1 in 6 Americans gets poisoned by food every year? This could lower the number.
To summarize:
Smart contracts can issue nfts as proof of ownership and include functionality.