Crypto News Recap - DeFi May Not Be Open-Source - December 10 - December 17, 2021

Transcript

[Music] thanks for tuning in to this week's news recap in hearing senators go tough on stable coins this week senators took both stable coins and defy to task during a banking committee meeting senator and committee chair sherrod brown started the hearing with prepared remarks saying cryptocurrencies advocates argue that crypto assets are superior to real dollars because they are decentralized and transparent but stable coins are neither he added stable coins make it easier than ever to risk real dollars on cryptocurrencies that are at best volatile and at worst outright fraudulent

senator elizabeth warren also chimed in expounding upon the dangers of stable coins and defy saying staple coins pose risks to consumers and to our economy they're propping up some of the shadiest parts of the crypto world defy where consumers are least protected from getting scammed she went on to say defy is where the regulation is effectively absent and no surprise it's where the scammers and the cheats and the swindlers mix among part-time investors and first-time crypto traders not every voice in the room was so negative senator pat toomey took the site of defy citing cross-border payments

programmability and efficiency as different ways that stablecoins improve upon fiat money tumi also emphasized that regulations should not stifle innovation and called for regulators to have the humility to recognize that many of our views about how financial services are delivered and how investments work are quickly becoming outdated tuesday's senate hearing comes less than a week after the house financial services committee hosted ceos from six digital asset firms in a meeting deemed positive by ftx ceo sam bankman freed it also comes shortly after the president's working group released a report on stablecoins which advised regulators to

restrict stablecoin issuers to insured banks bitcoin jumps as fed accelerates its stipulus taper on wednesday the federal open market committee began its two-day summit to discuss u.s monetary policy during day one federal reserve officials acknowledged the threat of inflation which is currently at a 39-year high in the wake of covet-19 induced stimulus packages supply and demand imbalances related to the pandemic and the reopening of the economy have continued to contribute to elevated levels of inflation the fomc explained however according to fed chair jerome powell

the economy no longer needs increasing amounts of policy support with that in mind the fed announced that it is looking to cut down on stimulus spending and will taper monthly bond purchases twice as quickly as planned reducing purchases by 30 billion dollars per month to zero by early 2022 for context the fed had originally intended to decrease stimulus spending by 15 billion dollars per month on wednesday after the fomc statement crypto prices jumped with the entire crypto market surging from a low of 2.03 trillion dollars that morning to a high of 2.27 trillion dollars by afternoon ave votes to close source code token holder zavave the fourth largest

d5 protocol by total value locked voted to make the code for the upcoming ave v3 release restricted by a business license this vote is essentially a signal on whether or not the ave community wants to protect its intellectual property from unauthorized use or simply allow anyone to use the code in any way they prefer explained the proposal that was passed by a slim majority of 55 a business license restricting the use of code in defy was first introduced by uniswap which most likely instituted such a practice due to being forked and vampire attacked by sushi swap during 2020's d5 summer the proposed of a v3 business license

would be similar to uniswaps in that it would restrict the usage of code for an initial amount of time which would most likely be one year during that time ave governance would keep the rights to authorize code forks for projects and teams who have a track record of collaborating with ave in the past the proposal didn't pass with overwhelming support 44 percent of ave's community voted for v3 to be released under an mit license which grants without limitation the rights to use copy modify merge publish distribute sub-license and or sell copies of the code for free cinempine ventures adam cochran believes that d5 protocols close sourcing some of

the code is a slippery soap that could lead to crypto applications running into the same issues they are trying to solve wrote cochrane we've seen more restrictive licenses and closed source pop up across d5 protocol and other chains over the past year when we design systems to be anti-competitive profit seekers we're just going to recreate the broken banking system but on chain one week three unicorns nydig a new york based bitcoin firm announced a one billion dollar funding round at a valuation of more than seven billion dollars according to dovemetrics this is tied as the largest funding round of 2021 in the crypto space

the capital from the raise will be used to further develop its btc infrastructure capabilities including lightning payments westcap led the round joining existing investors like affirm fis fi serve mass mutual morgan stanley and new york life on wednesday anchorage a crypto focus bank announced a 350 million raise at a valuation of over three billion dollars in a series d funding round anchorage which launched in 2017 as primarily a custodian for digital assets has since grown into a full service bank kkr a private equity firm with 459 billion dollars in assets under

management led the investment through a technology fund its first direct equity investment in a crypto firm also included in the round are goldman sachs blackrock paypal ventures andreessen horowitz and alameda research on thursday the block reported that dune analytics a crypto analytics company is raising money at a valuation of one billion dollars the block says that dunes raise would make for 39 crypto unicorns minted in 2021 shopify is launching an nft marketplace on thursday the e-commerce platform shopify announced the beta release of an nft marketplace where businesses can mint and sell branded nfts with shopify and shopify payments from their own

storefront the website notes that nfts will be available on ethereum polygon near and flow with customers being able to claim nfts via email nike made a metaverse acquisition rtfkt studios an nft fashion company has been acquired by nike created in january 2020 the metaverse native rtfkt is known for creating nfts of virtual sneakers and other collectibles this is not nike's first foray into digital goods nike has shown interest in tokenized fashion since 2019 when it filed for a patent regarding crypto kicks in 2021 nike has actively pursued virtual fashion

filing for patents on nike and just do it along with air jordan jumpman and swoosh logos for that reason benoit pagoto a co-founder of rtfkt is super excited about the acquisition nike is the only brand in the world that shares the deep passion we all have for innovation creativity and community and we're excited to grow our brand which was fully formed in the metaverse concluded pagoda notably the acquisition comes on the heels of a series of metaverse partnerships from adidas a nike competitor senators rally across the aisle to push for changes to infrastructure bill this week u.s treasury secretary janet

yellen received a letter from six senators asking her to clarify how the treasury department will interpret the broker definition for crypto tax reporting in the recently passed infrastructure investment and jobs act in the letter senators rob portman mark warner mike crappo kirsten cinema pat toomey and cynthia lummus noted that the vague definition of broker could pose significant issues for crypto actors and asked yellen and the treasury department to honor the intent of the bill which they felt was cemented during a conversation between senators portman and warner on the floor of the senate earlier this year at that time they specified the term would only cover brokers who enabled the

transfer of digital assets while entities ancillary to the process would not be considered brokers the senators urged the department of treasury to provide information or informal guidance within the current calendar year the move from the bipartisan group comes after multiple failed attempts at changing the language in the bill during its time in the senate hahn leaves a16z crypto to launch her own fund on wednesday katie han a general partner at andreessen horowitz and gp of a16z crypto announced her intention to leave a16z to start her own crypto fund focused on crypto and web 3 early next year the information reports that andreessen horowitz will be an anchor limited

partner in her new fund and make a large capital commitment up front but at least one other institution has made a larger commitment additionally a16 founders marc andreessen and ben horowitz and her partner gp of a16z crypto chris dixon are all personally investing in our fund as the firm's first female general partner han was hired with the launch of a16c's first crypto fund in 2018. in the past year alone she has helped ink 45 deals the information reports that she will be the sole gp of her new fund and intends to hire as many as 20 people with at least six founding team members being women which is notable in the male dominated industry

recently han has been hosting dinners for celebrities crypto community members lawmakers and policymakers drawing together people who intersect with crypto from everything from the nft to regulatory angles and all are in various ways necessary to crypto's success pawn sits on the boards of openc and coinbase before joining a16z in 2018 han served at the department of justice for over a decade a16z crypto will now be helmed by dixon ariana simpson anthony albanese and aliyah time for fun bits elon musk says tesla is letting the doge out according to data from coin gecko dogecoin was at 15 cents at 5 a.m

eastern time on december 14th by 6 a.m eastern time the price of doge had jumped to 21 cents an increase of 40 in roughly two hours why because elon of course at 5 34 a.m on the 14th the tesla ceo tweeted tesla will make some merch buyable with doge and see how it goes now what does this mean it means that dogeholders can order anything from a tesla umbrella to a tesla buckle belt on tesla's website though after perusing the shop dogecoin purchases do not seem to be live yet nfts come to a congressional race shrina karani is running for a house

seat in california and dropping 2022 nfts on solana representing potential web 3 policies in a conversation with coindesk karani said there is a ton of misunderstandings surrounding crypto and specifically points to tax and accounting roles as areas that can be addressed with new legislation south park makes crypto twitter feel seen south park did a bit on crypto that pokes hilarious fun at crypto and all its memes drama and jargon although i probably can't play the whole thing without creating copyright issues for myself here is a fun little taste next thing you know these people over here started chanting hoddle hodl and their nft started mooning and then these

guys over here started saying those guys right there right clicked them and and called for a pump and dump which made these guys beat the living hell out of anyone who said it was just fomo and died screaming that it was the flipping all right thanks for tuning in to learn more about jess elliptic and tf hawks be sure to check out the links in the show notes unconfirmed is produced by me laura shin with help from anthony yoon mark murdoch and daniel ness thanks for listening [Music] [Music] you