We’re at the start of November after a really great October for cryptocurrencies. Historically, both November and October have been great months for bitcoin in general. There is a lot taking place this month, so I thought I’d use this letter to share updates.
Bitcoin and Crypto.org Updates
There are a couple of upgrades taking place on blockchains that I am focusing on. The two updates that I care about is Bitcoin’s Taproot and CRO Cronos Upgrade.
What is Bitcoin Taproot?
The Bitcoin Taproot upgrade is set to come into effect on November 12th. In short, the upgrade will allow all bitcoin transactions to “look the same”. As it currently stands, a multi-sig transaction looks different than a segwit transaction than a transaction using schemas from the original implementation of bitcoin in 2009.
Different transaction schemas have their pros and cons. For example, a regular transaction in 2009 carries with it a certain amount of extraneous metadata that consumes block space. Since each bitcoin block is limited to 1MB of block space, it’s important that we conserve block space as much as possible.
Taproot allows for transactions to be condensed, and normalized. Many people are already expecting bitcoin to perform well in November, and this upgrade is just one of the reasons why the price could see a significant spike.
CRO Cronos Upgrade
The second is the CRO Cronos Upgrade which will add support for the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). This will allow all smart contracts that are on Ethereum to be deployed on the Crypto.org infrastructure. Yes, this means UniSwap, Synthetix, ChainLink, and any other DeFi or NFT platforms you enjoy playing around with on Ethereum.
The price of CRO seems to be reflecting the enthusiasm for this upgrade as it is nearing an all-time high. Keep in mind that BNB more than doubled when its EVM compatible “Binance Smart Chain” was released. Similarly, when Cardano announced its own version of the EVM the price of ADA spiked. It’s because suddenly these ecosystems gain the ability to piggyback on or steal market share from Ethereum.
Other Noteworthy News Items
SQUID token pumped over the course of a week or so, then dumped to 0 in a matter of minutes. This trend of memecoins is dangerous, especially for retail investors susceptible to FOMO. Watch out!
Facebook is likely to create a token to go along with their VR metaverse offering “Meta”. This will be their third attempt at creating a cryptocurrency.
Go Full Crypto Podcast Updates
Mrugakshee and I have been ramping up our guest interviews and have some really exciting people coming onto the podcast to share their experiences and insights.
Brendan Wood
We did a two part episode with Brendan. The first episode was jam-packed full of good info on traditional finance, and Brendan’s story on the events that led to him co-founding Passiv. By using Passiv, users can choose how they’d like to have their portfolio of stocks and cryptocurrencies balanced, and then let Passiv automate the trading required to achieve that balance. Brendan was doing this manually before he decided to write some code and build a product around it.
In the second episode, we talked about GIC's and bonds. These are actually really important concepts to learn as part of general financial and investment literacy. Brendan does a great job breaking these concepts down into digestible pieces of knowledge. We wrap up the show with a discussion on bitcoin, and currency. This was a great discussion on the nature of monetary policy and money in general.
Tristan Lamonica
Tristan works as the Director of Digital Strategy for the government of Canada. In university, he obtained a Masters's degree in communication and chose to focus on the lightning network as a foundation for the next generation of social media platforms.
Tristan got into bitcoin relatively early (in 2013) from a gaming perspective, only to revisit later from a communications and social media angle. Tristan explains that the lightning network is likely an ideal network to build monetization models into social media platforms. It would enable micropayments, as well as spam protection. No social media channels based on bitcoin and the lightning network have gone mainstream yet (although Y’alls, and ZapRead are out there vying for attention).
Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.
Andrew Bergel
This episode has yet to be released, but I wanted to give you a heads up on it so you know to look out for the release. Andrew Bergel is an ex wall street trader that shifted gears to join the college of sustainability with a focus on international relations and economics.
We already know that we’re going to have a 2 part episode for Andrew as well, as we barely scratched the surface of Andrews's knowledge in our first episode. He brings a unique perspective to the cryptocurrency space as someone who sees the potential for it to shift the world’s monetary infrastructure for the better.
Mining with Jacinda Brown and Suzanna Enis
With all the focus on bitcoin mining this year (2021), we wanted to interview more people actually from the mining industry. So we found two excellent orators and industry experts for our podcast. Jacinda Brown works in Colorado spinning up mining farms that are situated beside oil fields. Bitcoin mining makes the oil well operations more profitable, and environmentally friendly by reducing the amount of natural gas flaring that takes place. Jacinda really breaks it down for our listeners, so this is one that you’re not going to want to miss.
Sue Enis works for Hut8 Mining, a publicly traded mining company in Canada. While Jacinda has a couple of mining operations up and running, Sue joined the operations of Hut8 who have been running since 2017. The conversation with Sue ranged from going into detail about their mining operations to a discussion on the potential of bitcoin to capture a meaningful market share of the credit and bonds market.
Travel Updates & El Salvador
Mrugakshee and I will be in El Salvador two weeks from now. We’re going to be there from November 13th to December 4th. While there, we will be attending the Adopting Bitcoin Summit.
My Ask For Readers:
What sort of questions/answers do you want from people in El Salvador?
We will be releasing a series of articles/episodes/videos on what we witness and experience in El Salvador. We also want to know ahead of time what you’re interested in learning about so we know what to look for and what sort of questions to ask. Respond directly to this email with your questions!
Regards,
Keegan