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Every Monday we’ll drop a roundup of Web3 news, tweets and vibes from the last 7 days.
Your Web3 briefing 📝
Kick-start your week with a roundup of the biggest Web3 headlines over the last 7 days
Tweets of the week 🐦
We spend time on CT, so you don’t have to
Web3 101: Stablecoins 💡
Essential Web3 concepts, simply explained
Roundup of the biggest Web3 headlines over the last 7 days
The Ukrainian government has been fundraising in crypto. After tweeting their Bitcoin and Ethereum wallet addresses - they’ve raised around $20m
Ukraine / Україна@Ukraine
Stand with the people of Ukraine. Now accepting cryptocurrency donations. Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT. BTC - 357a3So9CbsNfBBgFYACGvxxS6tMaDoa1P ETH and USDT (ERC-20) - 0x165CD37b4C644C2921454429E7F9358d18A45e14
3:29 PM · Feb 26, 2022
51.5K Reposts · 188K Likes
This actually makes a lot of sense.
Consider how these sorts of donations would have traditionally happened, through banks. And banks in Ukraine, according to the NYT - “require an exasperating obstacle course of paperwork receiving even small amounts of money from another country”
But receiving crypto is allowing Ukraine to bypass financial institutions and receive quick, cross-border donations.
This also makes sense when you consider how tech-savvy (and crypto-savvy, for that matter) Ukraine is. They rank #1 in Europe and #4 globally for crypto adoption - and even had previously stated ambitions to become the crypto capital of the world.
In an interview with The Verge - Yev Muchnik, a Ukrainian-born lawyer said:
"It really restores your faith in how people and community and technology can do so much.”
But noted that:
“the missing link is trying to figure out what people on the ground need”.
And remember - Ukrainians will only be able to use this Crypto if their internet access holds out.
On a related note - Ukranian officials have also asked crypto exchanges to block payments to Russian users - which raises an interesting question:
Ukraine’s Vice PM tweeted this - essentially asking for crypto sanctions, along with the crippling financial sanctions on Russia already that’ve already been enacted:
Mykhailo Fedorov@FedorovMykhailo
I'm asking all major crypto exchanges to block addresses of Russian users. It's crucial to freeze not only the addresses linked to Russian and Belarusian politicians, but also to sabotage ordinary users.
1:12 PM · Feb 27, 2022
3.06K Reposts · 12.6K Likes
But, wait - crypto and sanctions? What about the whole, y'know, freedom from financial censorship thing?
There’s already been a response from Kraken - a major crypto exchange - who have essentially said, no - sorry.
Jesse Powell@jespow
1/6 I understand the rationale for this request but, despite my deep respect for the Ukrainian people, @krakenfx cannot freeze the accounts of our Russian clients without a legal requirement to do so. Russians should be aware that such a requirement could be imminent. #NYKNYC
Mykhailo Fedorov @FedorovMykhailo
I'm asking all major crypto exchanges to block addresses of Russian users. It's crucial to freeze not only the addresses linked to Russian and Belarusian politicians, but also to sabotage ordinary users.
1:48 AM · Feb 28, 2022
739 Reposts · 3.68K Likes
No doubt there will be more developments over the coming days.
All this is certainly taking sanctions policy into uncharted territory - as the WSJ reports - even if major centralised crypto exchanges (like Coinbase) were forced to freeze accounts of Russian clients - this wouldn’t be so easy with DeFi and true peer-to-peer crypto transactions, which by design, exist largely outside government-regulated financial system.
Ebay is considering taking Crypto payments
A Goldman Sachs partner leaves to join Coinbase
Block (formerly Square) reports $1.96 billion in Bitcoin revenue
Bitcoin hasn’t exactly been behaving like digital gold
We spend time on CT, so you don’t have to. Some of our favourite recent tweets:
Crypto journalist Laura Shin reveals the identity of the 2016 DAO hacker
Laura Shin@laurashin
EXCLUSIVE: With the publication of my book today, I can finally announce: in the course of writing my book, my sources and I believe we uncovered the identity of the Ethereum's 2016 DAO hacker.
11:39 AM · Feb 22, 2022
1.16K Reposts · 6.91K Likes
It’s more than just joining Discords
Daniel Schlabach@DMSchlabach
Telling people who want to get involved with DAOs to "just join a Discord and start contributing" is counterproductive. It's too overwhelming. Better to have them connect with a contributor who can give context and direct them to work with a defined scope.
6:35 PM · Feb 24, 2022
48 Reposts · 414 Likes
A new way to think about crypto - we like this
Naval@naval
Crypto is the smartest people in the world exiting into their own economy.
12:21 AM · Feb 25, 2022
4.14K Reposts · 26.7K Likes
BAYC Lead Artist @allseeingseneca sells 1/1 NFT for 39.69Ξ
andrew wang@andrwwang
LITTLE ONE by @allseeingseneca collected by @radiosolace for 39.69Ξ
1:40 AM · Feb 27, 2022
40 Reposts · 389 Likes
Finally - anything to do with @cobie's beef with Upwork 💀
Cobie@cobie
gm to everyone except @Upwork and putin
1:20 PM · Feb 26, 2022
98 Reposts · 3.26K Likes
Each week we’ll cover an essential Web3 concept in simple terms - this week we’re looking at Stablecoins ✨
Crypto is pretty much synonymous with price swings and volatility. Just look at the charts over the last few weeks! But there's a class of cryptocurrencies that are purpose built to avoid this - they're called Stablecoins.
What are they? Stablecoins are crypto without the volatility - designed to remain steady in value (more like a traditional currency)
How do they work? Some (such as USDC and USDT) are 'pegged' to a stable reserve asset (such as the US Dollar or Gold). Others (like DAI and UST) use collateralised cypto loans or algorithms to keep their value stable.
But why? Stablecoins can allow you to earn interest / yield without worrying about big price swings. They're also a fast and cheap way to transfer money (especially internationally) - as Ukraine's recent fundraising with USDT (a stablecoin) has shown.
That’s all for today! We’ll be building and improving this weekly newsletter in public, so let us know what you thought of the new format!
Yahya - at Layer3
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