Ep. 166 BOGGED Down
On this episode of the Unhashed Podcast, Kraken does NFT-backed loans, who is worthy of the title of Bearwhale, Dorsey doesn’t like web3.0, plastic surgery tips from a late Bogdanoff, Italian pizza history lessons, Binance burns a user’s withdrawal, and are stablecoins good for Bitcoin?
Kraken founder and Chief Executive Officer Jesse Powell says the cryptocurrency exchange is working on a non-fungible token marketplace that could appeal to customers who want to do more than just collect digital art. According to Powell, the marketplace would provide custody services and the exchange is considering a system where customers can use their NFTs as collateral to borrow funds against. “If you deposit a CryptoPunk on Kraken, we want to be able to reflect the value of that in your account. And if you want to borrow funds against that,” Kraken is working on a system to determine the liquidation value of the NFT deposited, he said in an interview with Bloomberg News. “It’s kind of shocking. For the first 10 years of Bitcoin we were trying so hard to sell people on why they should be interested in Bitcoin,” said Powell, explaining that the concept for NFTs existed in the early days of crypto when developers proposed “tagging” parts of the Bitcoin blockchain with metadata. “I guess it took the right combination of events, something really popular like NBA Top Shots that really got people talking about it.” Although non-fungible tokens spent most of 2021 as collectors’ items and perhaps a way for people who got rich off their cryptocurrency gains to show off a very expensive Twitter profile picture, Powell is expecting the use cases for the tokens to grow next year. “Phase one was speculation, phase two is buying art and supporting artists, phase three is going to be functional uses of NFTs,” said Powell. Using deposited NFTs as collateral on Kraken could be one of those uses, he said. The push comes as larger competitors including Binance and FTX Exchange have already launched NFT marketplaces, while millions have signed up for Coinbase Global Inc.’s NFT waitlist. Kraken said it's looking to enter the NFT space early next year. – https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/kraken-exchange-ceo-wants-you-to-borrow-against-your-cryptopunk-1.1700114
There’s a new BearWhale in town, Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView showed volatility hitting BTC/USD overnight on Saturday. The pair had reached $51,500 before starting to retrace, this culminating in a dip to $49,644. At the time of writing, Bitcoin was back circling $50,000. The move came in tandem with a rise in inflows to major exchange Binance, with order book data showing a new wall of resistance being built at $50,000. “This looks like a new player,” data analysis account Material Scientist noted in comments on Binance’s rapidly-changing order book setup.
Coindesk article, “What Jack Dorsey’s Beef With ‘Web 3′ Is Really About” by David Z. Morris is a great recap of the evolution of the “Blocksize Wars” into today’s Web 3 argument. To quote from the article “The prerequisite for all those nice things is the core feature that Bitcoiners argue defines a “real” blockchain: true and full decentralization. This is a crucial distinction: Decentralization isn’t in and of itself a virtue or a goal; it’s a thing you must have to get the features unique to public blockchains.“ and also “So Dorsey’s knock on VCs’ role in Web 3 would seem to back him into a corner: It’s unclear that there are alternative routes to funding and building the Web 3 vision. The unspoken implication of Dorsey’s attacks seems to be that the Web 3 vision being bandied about should be either entirely rejected, or scaled back to something that can be accomplished on Bitcoin. Which, again, is a bit strange coming from a man who has sold NFTs and invested in decentralized social media.” – https://www.coindesk.com/layer2/2021/12/23/what-jack-dorseys-beef-with-web-3-is-really-about/
They bogged one of their own. Twitter account @Mediavenir is reporting that one the Bogdanoff brothers, the subject of a favorite crypto meme, has died at the age of 72. – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV5QlSgq7lg
https://twitter.com/crypto_bitlord7/status/1473231965927063553
https://twitter.com/murchandamus/status/1475120106695008260?s=20
https://twitter.com/marioduarteBTC/status/1475792865074819077?s=20