Crypto

Growing up in poverty in Suriname, Etiënne vantKruys was told by his teacher he’d never succeed — but it only made him more determined to not follow in the footsteps of his parents. Thanks, in part, to crypto, he’s now living the dream.Despite his high-flying crypto VC lifestyle today, vantKruys keeps at least one foot on the ground by remembering his hungry past. He grew up dirt poor in Suriname, where his father was a drug addict who was often in prison.“I was always hungry — like, dude, always hungry. Always like, ‘Fuck, I need to eat.’ Always, always, always — it sticks with you. I don’t care if I’m in Singapore at a famous crypto conference at a high-flying restaurant, I would still order food from right to left. I would start with the price, like, ‘What can I get?’ You’re aware.”Back in 2017, anyone could easily get in on highly public ICOs raising $30 million to $50 million with a white paper full of dreams just because it had the word “blockchain” in it. Things are different today, with venture capitalists having to network and clamor to get a small placement of $250,000. Cap tables that track investor allocations fill up fast, and investors are lucky to get a pitch before needing to decide.“In this cycle, with the speed of things, you don’t have time to consider,” notes vantKruys, who heads New York-based digital asset fund TRGC. Often the only investors who have the privilege of doing full, proper due diligence are the “alpha dogs” like Coinbase Ventures and Binance, for whom he says room will be made even after a round has closed.The short stickAs vantKruys, 45, stepped out of his Uber upon arriving in San Francisco from Amsterdam for Blockchain Week in 2018, he saw a sight that brought him back to his childhood. The vast homeless population, often suffering from mental health issues, reminded him not only of his father but of the life for which he too was thought to be destined. The reality on the street of the city of technology startups was little different than those of his native Suriname, a former Dutch colony in South America where the average income is under $400 per month. vantKruys lived in residential accommodation with 80 other kids in Suriname. He remains in touch with many of them on Facebook and “three quarters are doing really well.”VantKruys had a difficult childhood and bounced around foster homes before ending up at a residential institution for 80 other disadvantaged children. He was born to teenage parents, and when not in prison, his father could be found “walking around the city in his underwear, dirty and unshaven — lost on heroin.” If his start in life were a poker hand, it looked much like a 2-7 offsuit — the worst possible combination.On his first day of elementary school, his classroom teacher told him and five other peers from the facility that “People don’t escape their circumstances.”“You guys have a 99% likelihood of repeating your parents’ lives,” the teacher lectured them in front of the whole class. VantKruys asked if that meant that he still had a 1% chance of making it. Some students began to giggle. “In Suriname culture, that’s a no-no. You never contradict or say anything smart to teachers. I got smacked as hell, like, ‘Know your place,’” he recalls. At eight years old, he knew there was a very hard journey ahead.But vantKruys had a plan. He believed in that 1% chance, even if no one would allow him to dream of it. “I thought of it like a boxing match in my head. I’ve got to beat 99 Mike Tysons to get where I want to, for that one shot,” he remembers. He worked hard, often getting the best grades.Homelessness was just one of the “Mike Tysons” he had to defeat. After high school, he managed to get into Utrecht University in the Netherlands to study pharmacy. He wanted to become a doctor, and his uncle covered his airfare. However, without money, he had to make do with sleeping in the central railway station, where he kept his things in a locker, and washing up at a local gym before heading to his morning classes.“This is just another Mike Tyson fight,” he thought to himself as he lived life in survival mode, convinced that one day there would be a final battle, and that he would make it.  VantKruys’ uncle lived nearby, and in 1998, his uncle introduced him to stock trading. The concept of buying portions of a company was entirely foreign, but he was enthralled. He went to one of his professors for advice, who suggested that “If you’re really interested in the funding of the biotech markets, you should look into the hedge funds on Wall Street.” VantKruys was off to the races.By using his knowledge of pharmacy to compare clinical trial data with public statements put out by companies, vantKruys managed to find an edge that “made a bit of money.” He dropped out of university so that he could focus full time on trading, developing a strategy around short-selling biotech stocks that seemed to overpromise without hard evidence.“I treat everything as a short — everything is bullshit until proven otherwise.”Enter BitcoinWhen the financial crisis hit in 2008–2009, vantKruys recalls going down the rabbit hole of endless questions: “What the fuck? What the hell is value? What is money? What is banking? What is finance?” the part-time stock trader remembers thinking as he investigated “all these conspiracy theories surrounding money.”When vantKruys read about Bitcoin on a forum around 2013, calling “bullshit” was his first instinct. However, many in his circle soon started talking about it, even at his birthday party in November 2013. “One of my colleagues came to the party and had everyone install the Blockchain.info wallet. Bitcoin, at that time, was like $300,” he recalls.By 2015, he was convinced that cryptocurrency was the future. He even left behind basketball,…

We ask the buidlers in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector for their thoughts on the industry… and we throw in a few random zingers to keep them on their toes! This week, our 6 Questions go to Denelle Dixon, CEO and executive director of the Stellar Development Foundation.Denelle Dixon is the CEO and executive director of the Stellar Development Foundation, a nonprofit organization using blockchain to unlock the world’s economic potential by making money more fluid, markets more open and people more empowered. Before joining Stellar, Denelle served as the chief operating officer of Mozilla, one of the most successful mission-driven open-source organizations. During her tenure at Mozilla, she led the organization’s business, revenue and policy teams, including the ongoing fight for net neutrality and the global effort to ensure that people can control their personal data. She also pushed Mozilla to understand how to partner with commercial entities while staying true to its core mission of openness, innovation and opportunity on the web. A lawyer by trade, Denelle previously served as a general counsel and legal advisor in private equity and technology. Throughout her career, Denelle has been a vocal advocate for net neutrality, encryption, the disclosure of vulnerabilities by governments, and greater user choice and control. 1 — What’s one problem you think blockchain has a chance to solve but hasn’t been attempted yet?There is no shortage of ideas for what blockchain can solve in terms of efficiency, transparency, data security, speed and cost. The great thing is blockchain’s versatility can be applied to most if not all industries ranging from finance to healthcare to education to retail. And blockchain has been around long enough that it’s not just for crypto enthusiasts anymore. Companies, organizations and institutions are now looking for ways to make blockchain part of their tech stack. Essentially, if there is a process that can be improved upon with technology, blockchain has the potential to be part of that solution.But blockchain needs to further mature before we see a fully comprehensive solution happen. So, maybe “attempt” isn’t the right word here so much as “fully implemented.”I would love to see blockchain tackle cybersecurity. Staying indoors throughout the pandemic has only amplified people’s reliance on technology — through their modes of communication, shopping habits or content consumption/creation. But it’s difficult for users to choose between protecting their data and the incentives provided to them for providing access to their data — not to mention that users are constantly at risk of being scammed or hacked. So, while users need to take a more vigilant approach to safeguarding their own data, blockchain can protect users at the product level via decentralization and built-in encryption methods. I’m very excited to see where blockchain projects focusing on cybersecurity end up in the coming years. 2 — What do you think will be the biggest trend in blockchain for the next 12 months?From a general standpoint, as blockchain becomes more consumer-friendly, we’ll see more businesses and individuals begin to adopt it. Interest in blockchain is only rising as the technology and infrastructure becomes more robust and useful, allowing people to solve problems in increasingly versatile ways.This means that industries beyond just fintech will start thinking of ways blockchain can benefit them. I welcome the diversification of industries as they bring more applications, products and services to blockchain, as it indicates growing acceptance by the public that blockchain really can be part of the mainstream.Regarding financial systems, the conversation around stablecoins and digital currencies will continue to intensify. We’re finally starting to see buy-in from traditional financial institutions that blockchain is a cost-effective, swift and powerful solution. If these institutions begin issuing stablecoins on their own, as Bitbond and Bank von der Heydt did, the mainstream consumer will become much more comfortable with the idea of digital currencies and blockchain in general. 3 — What’s the most interesting place you’ve ever visited, and why?This is a hard question because “interesting” could cover so many feelings. If I had to pick one, I would go with Kraków, Poland. While my visit there was brief, I could feel the history — both beautiful and tragic — beaming from within the large, culturally distinct and historically significant areas of Kraków. The contemporary city boasts vibrant businesses with historic buildings and churches and cathedrals dotting the landscape. It was a moving juxtaposition for me, especially after visiting the Jewish Quarter — Kazimierz — which is an ever-present reminder of the tragedies inflicted during WWII combined with more recent brilliance in the resurgence of the Jewish community there with art exhibitions that commemorate the rebuilding. For me, going to Kraków was a lesson in life, art and cultural protection. 4 — What’s the future of social media?If anyone has watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix, they’re probably aware that social media has deviated far from its original promise: to provide a space where people can voice their thoughts and connect with one another.We see now that social media has a whole host of problems. Not only have the psychological and cultural impacts of social media been more dramatic than many of us anticipated but current policies and regulations are not enough to safeguard users.As with most technology, social media in itself is neither good nor bad. It’s a tool, albeit one that is highly susceptible to algorithmic changes and design choices in the hands of a few.So, will we see a lot more video-driven features because that’s what performs best according to the algorithm? Will we see the voices of a few rise to the top because they happened to say the thing that would get the most eyeballs? Will we see companies increase their prominence on social media because their advertising budgets are the primary source of revenue for these networks? Yes to all of the above.But now we know where the flaws of social media exist, and these networks need to be reexamined, redesigned and rebuilt with not just the input of a few, but from all voices….

Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.Top Stories This WeekBitcoin tumbles 10% in 12 hours and falls below $50,000 for first time since MarchThings were looking markedly bearish for Bitcoin following last weekend’s swift and sudden correction, which caused Bitcoin to crash by 20% in a single hour.Within minutes last Sunday, $60,000 became a distant memory… with bulls forced to defend $55,000 instead. BTC’s prized $1-trillion market cap was also lost, and at one point, dominance sunk below 50% — a milestone that hasn’t been seen since 2018.But by the early hours of Friday, as selling pressure heightened, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency succumbed, dipping below $50,000 for the first time since March.Ether, which had managed to hit a new all-time high of $2,641.09 in the hours before the crash, also wasn’t immune from the sell-offs.Mass liquidations, an overheated futures market, the decline of the Kimchi premium, whales selling and concerns over President Joe Biden’s tax plans may all have been factors in the major correction. PlanB speculates that Bitcoin’s price fall doesn’t mean the endThere’s been no shortage of reaction to Bitcoin’s loss of momentum, with PlanB, the analyst behind the stock-to-flow forecast, insisting that the fall below $50,000 doesn’t mean that the current bull run is over.Pointing out that nothing goes up in a straight line, he tweeted: “#Bitcoin has gone up 6 months in a row, until this month. This looks like the mid-way dip that we also saw in 2013 and 2017.”ExoAlpha’s Élie Le Rest also believes that there are reasons to be optimistic, saying: “This kind of market pullback is very healthy as it contributes to deleveraging market participants and builds ground for a more stable growth.”The next major move in Bitcoin’s price will prove decisive, helping us to determine if this is merely an overdue correction or the opening salvo of the next bear market cycle.Veteran trader and chart guru Peter Brandt wasted little time in making a cheeky observation, writing: “The chances of a correction in cryptos is directly related to the prevalence of laser eyes on Twitter. Want the correction to end? Get rid of your laser eyes.” Bitcoin transaction fees in U.S. dollars near all-time highsIn other signs that history is repeating itself, Bitcoin transaction fees measured in U.S. dollars neared all-time highs recorded in 2017.Data from Blockchair shows the average cost of a BTC transaction hit $58 on Tuesday — approaching the record of $62 set in December 2017.The latest spike in BTC transaction fees comes amid a major decline in the Bitcoin network hash rate, which may have been exacerbated by massive power outages in the Chinese mining hub of Xinjiang.And the spike has also prompted some crypto exchanges to introduce less expensive ways of moving Bitcoin around as a matter of urgency, too.OKEx has now integrated the Lightning Network, while Square’s Cash App has quietly raised the minimum Bitcoin withdrawal to 0.001 BTC — 100,000 satoshis — markedly higher than the 0.0001 BTC that was in force previously. “Bitcoin incentivises renewable energy,” agree Elon Musk and Jack DorseyAs crypto traders with furrowed brows were confronted by a sea of red, industry heavyweights were focusing their attention on how to go green.Earth Day 2021 happened this week, and with Bitcoin regularly castigated for the high levels of energy that it takes to keep the network secure, some of the cryptocurrency’s most vocal backers made the case for BTC’s environmental efficiency.A new report authored by The Bitcoin Clean Energy Initiative argues that Bitcoin mining incentivizes the generation of electricity “from renewable carbon-free sources.”The paper has received support from top crypto luminaries including Square’s Jack Dorsey, Tesla’s Elon Musk, and Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood. Tether is listing on Coinbase ProCoinbase Pro has announced that it is listing Tether on its platform, paving the way for trading pairs linking the ERC-20 version of USDT with BTC, ETH, USDC, the euro, the British pound and the U.S. dollar.This is a rather big deal, and it signifies that the exchange is not concerned about the stablecoin’s previous regulatory issues or the long-running controversy over the validity of Tether’s backing. Bitfinex chief technology officer Paolo Ardoino told Cointelegraph: “We are gratified by Coinbase’s decision to add Tether tokens on ERC-20 to its Coinbase Pro platform. This is happening as we near a market capitalization of $50 billion and represents another step forward as we broaden our community.” Winners and Losers  At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $49,237.93, Ether at $2,203.74 and XRP at $1.06. The total market cap is at $1,813,860,544,571.Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Solana, Celo and PancakeSwap. The top three altcoin losers of the week are Bitcoin SV, NEM and Ontology.For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.   Most Memorable Quotations “Contrary to what you may have been told or wish, #crypto is not a get rich quick scheme.”Changpeng Zhao, Binance CEO “Bitcoin is up 600% in last year. Gold is up 3% in last year. No more tweeting until gold can beat inflation, Peter!” Anthony Pompliano, Bitcoin proponent “Without any strong catalyst, breaking above $60k looks difficult at this time, and a break below $50k may drive Bitcoin down to $30k. Traditional markets showing signs of exhaustion may also put a dent on the crypto markets recovery.”David Lifchitz, ExoAlpha chief investment officer “ETH is rapidly becoming the currency of the digital world and BTC is the pristine collateral and base layer.”Raoul Pal, Real Vision CEO “I think the crypto space is amazing right now. It’s the best-kept secret in the world and maybe the history of the financial markets.”Thomas Farley, New York Stock Exchange president “DOGE is relatively well suited for payments. It’s extremely fast and efficient — transactions cost less than a cent.”Jason Lau, OKCoin chief operating officer “unSAFEMOON”Luke Martin, blockchain developer “We have no appetite…

Toward the end of our hour-long interview, Bitcoin.com founder Roger Ver drops a bombshell: He had considered killing himself to escape a jail sentence at the age of 23.Even for the most freedom-loving libertarian, this seems extreme. But Ver had worked out a way to escape his own death by having himself cryonically preserved, to be revived at a later date. At 20 years old, Ver had already signed up with Arizona life extension company Alcor to be frozen after death, long before he was handed a 10-month prison stretch in 2002 for selling firecrackers on eBay.“It’ll freeze your body in a big giant vat of liquid nitrogen when you die, in the hopes that future medical technology will be able to fix whatever it is that caused you to die in the first place — plus the damage caused by freezing,” he explains:“And so in fact, I even considered — suicide isn’t the right word — but I considered killing myself temporarily, going into cryonic suspension and then coming out later, when the technology is better, to avoid going to prison. That’s how upset I was about going to jail.”Now 42, and with a fortune he vaguely refers to as being in the billions, the Bitcoin Cash proponent intends to switch his investment focus to cryonics over the next decade, in the hopes of improving the experimental technology.“Rather than investing in cryptocurrency stuff, I want to focus on the extreme life extension technologies because if you die, you can’t enjoy your life anymore,” he says. At various points during our conversation, Ver refers to his mission with a well-rehearsed tagline about helping build the tools to give people control over their own money (or variations thereof). Riffing on this, he says his new focus will be to “build the tools that enable people to have as much time as they need in their lives to do the things that they enjoy, and spend it with the people they care about.”If Ver gets run over by a bus tomorrow, there’s a card in his wallet and notes on his phone with instructions to immediately get in touch with Alcor to freeze his body, with the hope of eventual resurrection. “That’s certainly my hope,” he says, adding wryly, “The downside of that is that the company’s in Arizona, and I’m zipping all over the world.”Paradise in the pandemicVer is currently bunkering down from the pandemic on the French-speaking island of St. Barts in the Caribbean, where it’s “summer all year round.” Following his run-in with United States authorities, he renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2014 and became a citizen of St. Kitts and Nevis. He spends a lot of time in neighboring Antigua, where he convinced businesses from gas stations to supermarkets to accept BCH. You can now even pay the $158,000 required to become a citizen in crypto.Compared with 2017 and 2018, when Ver seemed to be everywhere arguing the case for big blocks and peer-to-peer cash, he’s been a lot less prominent lately. “I absolutely made a deliberate decision to do less media stuff,” he says. “That civil war is kind of over now. So, I don’t think I need to argue with words so much as build useful things for people around the world to use.”He’s still pretty active behind the scenes though, playing an instrumental role in convincing Kim Dotcom to embrace Bitcoin Cash for his K.im content monetization platform.Speaking to Bitcoin maximalist Tone Vays (who was decidedly unimpressed), Dotcom revealed that Ver had won him over. “He shared with me some of the innovations that he’s working on. I think the guy at the moment, in terms of his way of thinking and where he is in his innovation, is a step ahead. I feel it would be stupid to ignore someone like that.”It sounds as if Ver may have also extolled the virtues of Bitcoin Cash to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, but he’s reluctant to confirm this.“I hate to be coy, but I’m not going to comment on that question. I’m happy to talk about just about everything, but that’s one that I think we’ll have to save for another time.”Well, that’s not a “No,” is it? Elon Musk and Kim Dotcom talk Bitcoin Cash low fees!! Does Bitcoin high transaction fees matter? #bitcoin #BitcoinCash @elonmusk @KimDotcom https://t.co/BbeVkDbUUl pic.twitter.com/UkvLapITD4— Ryan Giffin (@RyanMic87079594) March 29, 2021 The only bit of the story about Bitcoin forksAs one of the earliest and most ardent Bitcoin proponents, Ver is also one of the most controversial for his role in forking Bitcoin Cash away in November 2017. While BCH’s price and hash rate pale into insignificance against Bitcoin, as of late, the network’s transaction count is 100,000 more per day than Bitcoin’s, and its block size is larger too, suggesting it may actually be starting to be used as a currency.But forks spawn forks, and the once-ally and Satoshi-claimant Craig Wright forked Bitcoin SV away from Bitcoin Cash a year later. At one point, Ver seemed to give some credence to Wright’s Satoshi claims, but relations soured, and the Australian now spends much of his time mounting lawsuits against Ver for libel for calling him a fraud. The most recent case was filed in Antigua in September. “100% for sure he’s going to lose that one too,” says Ver, without even a hint of concern.But what was he hoping to achieve by hitching his fortune to Wright’s in the first place?“Good question,” he says, “The things that Craig Wright was saying back then are totally different than what he’s been saying more recently. Back then, he was espousing a lot of this free market libertarian-type rhetoric.” Hesitating, he adds: “I guess at the time, I was hoping to have one more ally. […] It turned out Craig wasn’t a good ally.”Yet another Bitcoin Cash fork occurred in November last year, as a result of Bitcoin ABC’s “benevolent dictator” Amaury Sechet trying to impose an 8% tax on miners to pay for development….

Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.Top Stories This WeekBitcoin bulls attack $57,000, and altcoins rally as April comes to a closeA sudden bullish surge took traders by surprise as April drew to a close, with Bitcoin staging a 10% rally in a matter of hours.Highs of $58,448.34 helped to erase recent losses — but not entirely.Data from Bybt shows that BTC’s price fell by 1.98% last month. That’s the first time the world’s biggest cryptocurrency has closed the month of April in the red since 2015.A contributing factor to upbeat market activity may have been linked to an astounding surge in revenues at MicroStrategy, a company that owns 91,000 BTC.MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor said: “We will continue to acquire and hold additional Bitcoin as we seek to create additional value for shareholders.” Ethereum’s market cap exceeds platinum’s for the very first timeWhile Bitcoin had lost its footing for most of the week, Ether has gone from strength to strength.The No. 2 cryptocurrency continues to break new all-time highs — with the latest record of $2,879.75 set on Saturday.Overall, 2021 promises to be a crucial year for the Ethereum blockchain as the long-awaited Eth2 upgrade takes shape. The network is set to part ways with its proof-of-work consensus algorithm and shift to proof-of-stake, which is set to cut costs and preserve energy.At $330 billion, Ether’s market cap has now exceeded industry giants including Procter & Gamble and PayPal — not to mention platinum. The digital asset is also a stone’s throw away from overtaking The Walt Disney Company and Bank of America. Tesla books huge profit from Bitcoin sale in Q1 Tesla sold a portion of its Bitcoin holdings in the first quarter, pocketing a profit of $101 million as a result.The electric vehicle manufacturer announced that it had snapped up Bitcoin worth $1.5 billion in February, and this sale amounts to about 10% of its crypto stash.Crypto Twitter didn’t react kindly to the news, with comedian Dave Portnoy accusing Elon Musk of profiting from a pump-and-dump engineered by his public statements supporting BTC.Musk rejected these claims and said that he hasn’t sold any of his Bitcoin. He also explained that Tesla executed this transaction “essentially to prove liquidity of Bitcoin as an alternative to holding cash on balance sheet.”Meanwhile, Musk has continued to champion Dogecoin on his Twitter feed — ahead of him hosting Saturday Night Live on May 8. Coinbase offers customers a way to purchase crypto using PayPalThere were a series of milestones this week when it comes to simplifying the process of buying crypto… and using it as a payment method.Coinbase announced that users in the U.S. will now be able to buy digital assets using debit cards and bank accounts linked to their PayPal profiles — giving them a greater choice of digital assets than PayPal alone provides.Meanwhile, rival exchange Gemini announced that it is teaming up with Mastercard to release a credit card that will allow crypto holders to spend digital assets and receive cash-back rewards in the form of Bitcoin.Elsewhere, Binance announced that it was launching its own NFT marketplace in June — complete with a “Premium Event” category that is designed to attract big-name signings.And, if you’re feeling hungry, Bubba Gump Shrimp’s seafood restaurants are going to start accepting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in the next 90 days.The Giving Block launches “Crypto Giving Pledge” to ramp up donation effortsA leading crypto donations platform has launched a new initiative that’s designed to help the digital assets sector become the most charitable in the world.The Giving Block has launched a “Crypto Giving Pledge” that encourages investors to pledge at least 1% of their holdings to charities each year and asks businesses in this space to contribute 1% of their revenue toward similar causes.Users can join the initiative anonymously and without having to disclose their contributions. If everyone in crypto donated 1% of their holdings to charities, they could collectively raise $20 billion.As well as raising money for “amazing causes in critical need of support,” the organization’s co-founder also says that this could erase crypto tax burdens for donors — and “put to bed this idea that crypto is bad.” Winners and Losers  At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $57,380.31, Ether at $2,880.41 and XRP at $1.56. The total market cap is at $2,212,553,216,270.Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Fantom, Polygon and OKB. The only altcoin loser is Celo.For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.   Most Memorable Quotations “After the current lawsuit, Ripple will go public. The current CEO wants to do that. Chris wants to do that.”Yoshitaka Kitao, SBI Group CEO “Facebook has purchased 0 bitcoin for an aggregate price of $0 in a strategic corporate move to have fun staying poor.”Texan Hodl “If you sold #Bitcoin because Facebook didn’t buy any in Q1 and you also think you’re GMI, I have some unfortunate news for you.”Travis Kling, Ikigai CEO “HMRC suspects that an increasing amount of hidden wealth is slipping through its fingers thanks to the rise of cryptocurrencies.”David Jones, UHY Hacker Young director “With blockchain analytics, the thing we say over and over is that all this activity is on this ledger forever, and if you did something bad 10 years ago you can be caught and arrested for it today.”Sarah Meiklejohn, computer scientist “Rather than investing in cryptocurrency stuff, I want to focus on the extreme life extension technologies because if you die, you can’t enjoy your life anymore.”Roger Ver, Bitcoin.com founder “This recent recovery in Altcoin Market Cap is much sharper than the post-retrace recovery in February.”Rekt Capital Prediction of the WeekEther will always come second to Bitcoin, says Shark Tank’s Kevin O’LearyDespite ETH strengthening further against BTC this week, Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary still believes that Bitcoin will remain top of…

ICOs? He held the first one. Stablecoins? He dreamed of them by accident. Vitalik Buterin tried to get him on board to help launch Ethereum, but he was too busy. He is J. R. Willett, one of the most fascinating men in the industry.Back in 2012, Willett, now 41, felt he could improve Bitcoin by making it possible for anyone to create interoperable tokens backed by the protocol. He released a white paper that described the new model and invented a way to fund the project with a token sale. He procrastinated for the next 18 months, hoping someone else would take the bait. Eventually, he gave in and announced the Mastercoin initial coin offering, which went on to inspire Ethereum and every subsequent ICO.“It felt like I was just putting into words what was obviously going to happen — people were already talking about it, and I thought, ‘Why hasn’t someone formalized this at least a little bit?’ I just got tired of waiting for someone else.”In the early days, he was worried that cryptocurrency would bring about a dystopia where either the late adopters became penniless or a one-world government would form to regulate everyone’s transactions. He’s still worried, but things are going better than he’d feared. [jnews_carousel_3 enable_autoplay=”true” autoplay_delay=”4500″ post_offset=”1″ include_category=”157″] In the sea of exceptional and charismatic people who rise to the top of the cryptocurrency world, Willett stands out. Not in his absolutist conviction to a set of principles, not in his journey from rags to riches, not in his “maniac drive“ to stick with a project, not in his outsized charitable pursuits, and not even in his artistic endeavors or grand visions for the future. No. Willett stands out because despite the incredible things he has set in motion, he remains a humble family man who never forgot what was most important.The first ICOWhen the world rang in the year 2012, Bitcoin was pretty much the only game in town. Bitcoin, blockchain and cryptocurrency were one and the same, save for the newly birthed Litecoin fork that was not yet three months old (LTC was created via mining, just like Bitcoin). It’s here that Willett arrived to stir the pot, publishing what he called “The Second Bitcoin Whitepaper.” the mastercoin prospectus is fascinating. it was the 1st ICO, and as far as white papers go, it is really good. it even has risk disclosures! it describes a lot of ideas that would be implemented years later – DEXes, stablecoins, tokenization, onchain govhttps://t.co/noFt1PKzUD— nic carter (@nic__carter) December 8, 2020 “We claim that the existing Bitcoin network can be used as a protocol layer, on top of which new currency layers with new rules can be built without changing the foundation,” he wrote. The idea was to make it possible to create new, functional tokens on top of Bitcoin in such a way that smart contracts could regulate their interactions. “Mastercoin supports creating property tokens to be used for titles, deeds, user- backed currencies and even shares in a company,” the white paper explained.This sounds much like Ethereum today, complete with interoperable ERC-20 tokens and smart contracts. That is no coincidence, considering that Ethereum was partly inspired by Willett’s ideas.“Vitalik came to us initially with his ideas, and we told him, ‘We’ve got some other things we want to do first.’ He didn’t want to wait, and it’s good for him that he didn’t. Ethereum was the result of that.”Willett even brought up the idea of stablecoins, writing that “If you think Bitcoin has a reputation problem for money laundering now, just wait until you can store ‘USDCoins’ in the block chain!” This was a new idea — he invented the concept.Mastercoin’s launch — and token sale — was announced in July 2013. It was the first-ever ICO, and coins could be purchased at an exchange rate of 100 MSC per 1 BTC. These first coins were received from the “Exodus Address,” which served as Mastercoin’s equivalent to the genesis block — while Bitcoin was the beginning, Mastercoin was imagined as the next era.When Willett announced Mastercoin on the Bitcointalk forum, he thought of it as a one-time shortcut to get around the “proper way” of raising money. “It didn’t feel like an innovation at the time,” he says.“I thought I had found a bit of a shortcut — I just didn’t have time to go flying to California, putting together a pitch deck and talking to venture capitalists, most of whom hadn’t heard of Bitcoin.”Eventually, Mastercoin evolved into the Mastercoin Foundation, itself evolving into the Omni Foundation, which Willett founded and where he still serves as chief architect. Willett says that transparency was very important to him while creating the nonprofit, and explains how he used a public spreadsheet to record all expenses.“The problem with that was that as we started running out of money, everybody knew we were running out of money, and that took some of the wind from our sails,” he recalls with a laugh. Today, Omni Layer is an “open source, fully decentralized asset platform” that allows for “creating and trading custom digital assets and currencies.” [jnews_carousel_3 enable_autoplay=”true” autoplay_delay=”4500″ post_offset=”1″ include_category=”157″] When asked if he harbors any regrets in not becoming a billionaire CEO, he lets out a hearty guffaw. “I’m sure there would have been things that were fun about it,” he says giddily, but goes on to explain that he is a minimalist who barely owns anything that his kids do not need. “What do you get from being super-wealthy, if you kind of have a minimalist state of mind? You just get a bunch of problems,” he contemplates. Is there perhaps a tinge of regret there?“Maybe the regret there is that I could have done a lot of good — but hopefully, those people that do become billionaires will do a lot of good.”  The inventorWillett led what he calls an idyllic childhood with a father who “always had a knack for money and investments” and began teaching him coding on the family’s Apple…

They were only two seemingly innocuous words: “investment alternatives.” But when applied to Bitcoin — the seminal cryptocurrency — by an official from the People’s Bank of China in a recent panel discussion, they reverberated like a firecracker.“A remarkable step for BTC,” Lennix Lai, director of financial markets at OKEx, calls the statement. Michael Peshkam, executive in residence at European business school INSEAD, describes the central banker’s remarks as “a significant shift in the country’s position” on crypto.To recap: On April 18 at a CNBC event at the Boao Forum for Asia, Li Bo, deputy governor of the PBoC — China’s central bank — said: “We regard Bitcoin and stablecoin as crypto assets. […] These are investment alternatives.” CNBC reporter Arjun Kharpal commented:“Industry insiders called the comments ‘progressive’ and are watching closely for any regulatory changes made by the People’s Bank of China.”“Yes, I do see a change in tone” in China, “a softened and more open approach to considering the role of Bitcoin,” Kevin Desouza — professor of business, technology and strategy at Queensland University of Technology Business School — tells Magazine. “I still do not see a full embrace of Bitcoin.”“This is a very important development,” Daniel Lacalle, chief economist at Tressis SV, tells Magazine — one that involves a “significant change of heart” on the part of China’s government as it “separates itself from its former monetary policy.” The government is saying, in effect, that it isn’t going to ban or put the brakes on the growth of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which have been an ever-present risk for both China and other governments, Lacalle suggests.If so, why now? China is close to rolling out one of the world’s first major central bank digital currencies at scale — sometimes referred to as the Digital Currency Electronic Payment, or digital yuan. “If it wants a digital yuan that works, it can’t ban crypto,” Lacalle says. Rather, it needs to show that its DC/EP is as attractive as a crypto alternative.Connecting the dots: BTC and DC/EPWhat exactly, though, is the connection between Bitcoin and China’s DC/EP? Aren’t they two different things — one an emerging global store of value, like gold, and the other a domestic payment system? The Chinese yuan, as currently constituted, is used in very few international transactions. “It is underutilized globally because China maintains capital controls,” Lacalle tells Magazine. China has long feared that if it were to drop these controls, its economy would quickly become “dollarized” — i.e., its citizens would send dollars away from China to the United States. As things stand today, the rollout of a digital yuan would be an international failure, though it might succeed domestically. Outsiders would assume that the Chinese government wants to control it like it does its traditional yuan. [jnews_carousel_3 enable_autoplay=”true” autoplay_delay=”4500″ post_offset=”1″ include_category=”157″] “But if they open the market for crypto in China, they are signalling that capital controls won’t apply to the digital market,” including a digital yuan, Lacalle explains. This is arguably an “intelligent move” on the part of the Chinese government, which like Russia before it now sees benefits in opening its economy to crypto. In fact, cryptocurrencies may eventually — albeit, in a “distant future” — hurt Western fiat currencies, authorities speculate. But in the meantime, a new tolerance with regard to Bitcoin can make its digital currency more viable beyond its borders. A potential currency?Peshkam tells Magazine that Li’s statement goes beyond recognizing BTC as just another investment asset, which is scarcely an earth-shaking revelation. China now sees crypto “as a future potential currency in global trade.”Using Google Trends data from 2014 to the present, Peshkam notes that interest in Bitcoin within China — i.e., among its domestic population — follows a similar pattern as in the U.S., as well as the world at large, as measured by the number of searches for the word “Bitcoin.” Ignoring this growing interest on the part of its populace “might not be economically and financially prudent for the country in the long run, thus the shift” in Chinese policy, opines Peshkam.  China’s DC/EP will probably become “the main means of daily trade from grocery shopping to payment of bills and larger ticket items” domestically, Peshkam says. But it is too early to gauge its international impact, including whether or not it will be a threat to the U.S. dollar as the world’s primary trading currency.Just in case, continues Peshkam, China would like to have BTC on hand to reduce its dependence on the dollar for global trade. A strong BTC could also similarly weaken the dollar’s hold on China’s regional neighbors, making them more open to using the new digital yuan. “The shift in China’s position seems to be a strategic move to safeguard its future economic dominance should Bitcoin move from ‘investment alternative’ to ‘trading currency alternative,’” says Peshkam.Who is Li?Perhaps one is reading too much into a single person’s statement? Li, after all, is just one of seven deputy governors of China’s central bank. Might these remarks on the matter of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies simply be one banker’s opinion?No, Lacalle tells Magazine. “That doesn’t happen in China.” Not in forums like these. “When they want to alert the world about some new [financial] policy, the first comment is often from an analyst in a state-owned bank.” Next, typically, is a statement by a central banker. And finally, at a later date, the policy is officially announced, explains Lacalle. This is what happened when China devalued the yuan in 2015, for instance. “It is subtle but efficient.”China’s central bank is not as independent as some of its Western counterparts, including the U.S. Federal Reserve, another source, who wished to remain anonymous, tells Magazine: “In his [Li’s] place, it would be natural to check whether his statement is in accord with the government view. Or, alternatively, he has been tipped that this is the government view.”  So, Li is simply acting as a government spokesperson? “It can be viewed this way,” says Molly Jane Zuckerman, head of content at CoinMarketCap,…

Coming every Saturday, Hodler’s Digest will help you track every single important news story that happened this week. The best (and worst) quotes, adoption and regulation highlights, leading coins, predictions and much more — a week on Cointelegraph in one link.Top Stories This WeekAltcoins rally as bulls pile into large-cap tokens and layer-one projectsWe’re well and truly in the throes of “altseason” now, with Bitcoin’s dominance showing no signs of diminishing.Ether delivered a stunning surge that took its price above $3,000 for the very first time, breaking new records throughout the week. On Saturday, ETH remained in uncharted territory after racing to highs of $3,800.Among those celebrating ETH’s spike will be Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who has officially become a crypto billionaire. Excitement is continuing to build ahead of a long-awaited upgrade that will overhaul the network’s gas fee structure in July.ETH is in good company, too. EOS rallied by more than 100% this week following a recent protocol that increases the project’s inflation rate. Litecoin has hit a one-year high against Bitcoin, with many analysts predicting extended upside momentum. And Bitcoin Cash jumped 68% amid rumors that a looming hard fork could boost the network’s user base.Even Ethereum Classic, the hard fork sparked by disagreements after a devastating 2016 hack, has pumped 130% in the past week.Of course, there’s one altcoin in particular that continues to steal the show… May 8 “day to watch” for Dogecoin amid warning it can suffer an XRP-style crashDOGE has seemed unstoppable in recent weeks. It hit unprecedented highs of $0.7376 early on Saturday. To put into context how bonkers the joke cryptocurrency’s surge really is, $1 invested on Jan. 1 would now be worth $139 at current prices.Mania over the financial homage to Shiba Inus everywhere may be about to reach a climax when DOGE enthusiast and mega-billionaire Elon Musk hosts Saturday Night Live. It’s inevitable that his appearance will feature endless sketches about Dogecoin, and that could pump prices even further.But not everyone is finding DOGE’s surge to be a cause for celebration. Lowstrife, a popular account on Twitter, believes the end is nigh, with the crypto trader spotting eerie similarities between DOGE’s current charts and XRP in the heady days of 2018.Back then, XRP had hit all-time highs of $3.20 that remain true to this day, but then slowly faded to lows of $0.14 — a loss of 95.6%.Warning of an impending apocalypse for DOGE, Lowstrife wrote: “Each of DOGE’s major rallies this year has been smaller and less aggressive. What took 18 hours at first has been ongoing for 2 days now. I suspect this is the final push before it’s all over for good. May 8th is the day to watch.”Even Musk himself has been cooling the hype, reminding followers that crypto investments remain speculative. Square’s Bitcoin revenue up 1,000% in 12 monthsA flurry of earnings results this week powerfully illustrated the impact that Bitcoin’s sensational first quarter has had.Square blew analysts’ expectations by delivering earnings of $0.41 per share between January and March — far beyond the $0.16 forecast. Revenue came in at $5.06 billion, dwarfing predictions of $3.36 billion.Bitcoin alone drove $3.5 billion in revenue, an astonishing increase of 1,000% in just 12 months. Overall, the crypto-friendly company’s gross profit also surged 79% year on year to hit $964 million.Square’s also sitting on paper profits of $250 million after making two high-profile Bitcoin purchases — one in February and one in October.PayPal has also been heralding the “great results” it has been receiving from its crypto service. The platform’s earnings and revenue also exceeded predictions in Q1. Coinbase stock plunges to record low, further decoupling from cryptoThe celebratory atmosphere isn’t universal. Coinbase shares tumbled to fresh lows on Thursday as Wall Street investors continued to cycle out of high-flying tech stocks. COIN bottomed at $255.15, where it was in danger of breaching the $250 reference price set on the eve of its public listing in April. All of this comes despite the total market cap of all cryptocurrencies surging beyond $2.4 trillion.FBB Capital Partners’ director of research, Mike Bailey, told Bloomberg: “We saw a mini-bubble in SPACs, IPOs, crypto, clean-tech and hyper-growth in late 2020 and early 2021 and many of these asset classes are nursing bad hangovers.”(That said, his assertion that crypto is nursing a “bad hangover” is misplaced.)Coinbase’s woes may be linked to increasing competition among crypto exchanges, which has left retail investors spoiled for choice. There’s a danger that this could eat into the revenues it derives from transaction fees, which make up most of its income. Comedian Bill Maher excoriates environmental impact of cryptoElon Musk’s stint on the box this weekend serves as a powerful counterweight to comedian Bill Maher, who didn’t leave crypto enthusiasts in stitches during a recent segment.On Maher’s program, he compared the industry to a virtual game — and talked about mining in a derisive tone. Maher also implied that investing in tokens was a childish endeavor, and illustrated his point with quotes from Warren Buffett.He said: “There is something inherently not credible about creating hundreds of billions in virtual wealth with nothing ever actually being accomplished and no actual product made or service rendered. […] Unfortunately, what is real is the unfathomable amount of electricity those massive supercomputers suck up for their mining.”Maher even quipped that Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym used by Bitcoin’s inventor, is the Japanese term for “Monopoly money.”Anthony Pompliano shared the clip along with this caption: “Never ask a comedian for investment advice.”Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao replied, writing: “Very sad to watch. Feel really hopeless for him. Joke’s going to be on him. Time will show.” Winners and Losers  At the end of the week, Bitcoin is at $58,366.32, Ether at $3,811.20 and XRP at $1.56. The total market cap is at $2,433,633,423,933.Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Shiba Inu, Bitcoin Diamond and Telcoin. The top three altcoin losers of the week are Harmony, Huobi Token and Filecoin.For more info on crypto prices,…

The organizer of The Robin Hood Group — which once stole 10% of all circulating ETH from under a black hat hacker’s nose — wants to change the way we think about charity.A former chemical engineer, Griff Green, 36, traded in his savings for precious metals, which he used to travel the world for years before settling as a Bitcoin missionary in Ecuador. He led a white hat hacker war against the infamous black hat hacker of The DAO, and he organizes cryptocurrency camps at Burning Man to spread the word about crypto — while dressed as Santa and riding a massive metal Doge.His next big mission, with the blockchain-based charity initiatives Giveth and Commons Stack, is to transform the game of economics into one in which donations transform into investments… investments that can even wind up with the donor making a profit.DAO masterThe morning of June 17, 2016, was a pivotal day in cryptocurrency — it was the day The DAO was hacked. The DAO was arguably the first major decentralized autonomous organization, having raised 14% of all circulating Ether in existence at the time from over 11,000 investors in May 2016. It functioned as an investor-driven venture fund, with tokenholders able to vote on investment proposals.But a malicious actor found an exploit allowing funds to be progressively drained from The DAO’s accounts. Green quickly organized his white hat hacker collective, The Robin Hood Group, to launch a counteroffensive. White hat hacker and philanthropist Griff Green. (Pic: Supplied)One week later, Green would be among the first nine graduates from the University of Nicosia’s Master’s in Digital Currency program. He was hired by Slock.it, a company developing on Ethereum, as a community manager responsible for organizing and educating The DAO’s community.Green jumped onto a Slack channel for The DAO’s investors, imploring them not to panic as his team rushed to drain what was left of the project’s holdings before the attackers could. He encouraged users to spam the network as much as possible to slow it down and increase gas fees, making it harder for the real hacker:“The DAO is being attacked. It has been going on for 3-4 hours, it is draining Ethereum at a rapid rate. This is not a drill… We need to spam the Network so that we can mount a counter attack all the brightest minds in the Ethereum world are in on this.”At the same time, his team started replicating the hacker’s attacks for itself, draining The DAO’s wallets of ETH before the hacker could take it.“We had 10% of all Ether in existence.”“We were taking a huge risk,” Green acknowledges regarding the legality of preemptively stealing tens of millions in Ether so the hacker couldn’t. The Ethereum chain was controversially forked following the hack in order to “turn back time“ to before the hack, but Ethereum Classic emerged as a still-valuable token. This meant that Green and crew effectively held 10% of all ETC with the funds they had stolen. [jnews_carousel_3 enable_autoplay=”true” autoplay_delay=”4500″ post_offset=”1″ include_category=”157″] Legal threats started pouring in, telling the group that the ETC should be distributed, despite the fact that “We were just normal people, we didn’t have a company,” he says looking back. All the members of the group jumped on planes and “flew to Switzerland to figure out legal representation, and it was the first time we all met in person.” Eventually, the funds were returned through a DApp that Green’s team coded. If you haven’t ridden around Burning Man on a giant Disco Doge, you haven’t lived.About a year later in November 2017, the team had similar success rescuing $210 million from the Parity multisig wallet hack. “We wanted to tell everyone, ‘Hey, guess what? We stole all this money, but you can trust us because we already gave back all the money in The DAO,’” Green recalls. But he explains that this was risky for the now-public team because anyone could use Google to find out where they — and thus, the private keys — could be found. That night, Green “slept on a mattress with a baseball bat in front of the door,” fearing someone might come to take the keys by force.Hacking is not the only way in which Green has put himself at risk in the name of his principles. When the autonomous region of Catalonia attempted to vote for independence from Spain in 2017, Green went to a polling station to act as a human shield to protect the electoral process from “the police, who were beating people to steal the ballots.” This experience convinced Green that decentralized governance on the blockchain can only work efficiently if people are able to run their nodes without relying on centralized internet providers. The result was DAppNode, which helps people around the world set up peer-to-peer infrastructure. Green wearing his signature Santa suit while discussing charity initiatives with controversial philanthropist Brock Pierce at Burning Man 2018. (Pic: Elias Ahonen)From engineer to Ecuadorian evangelistGreen was born in Spokane, Washington, where he graduated from high school in the mid-2000s. He was interested in designing planes and rocketships but decided not to pursue mechanical engineering after he realized that much of the industry was oriented toward military applications. Instead, he went into chemical engineering at the University of Washington in 2003.At the end of his studies in 2006, he interned at biopharmaceutical firm Amgen, where he helped “genetically engineer Chinese hamster ovary cells to produce human proteins,” he recalls, describing a “creepy process” in a laboratory filled with vats of blood. Later, he worked as a research assistant at his alma mater, turning algae into carbon-neutral fuel.He soon found himself employed as an “organizer of a really weird political movement in Seattle” called “Save Our Sonics“ trying to lobby the local government to keep NBA basketball team the Seattle SuperSonics from relocating to Oklahoma. His efforts ended with disappointment when the mayor “sold the team away anyway with just the stroke of a pen,” just as a judge was about to rule…