One of the perverse truisms of crypto is that for a certain kind of founder, the clearest path to success is to never actually build anything. Token presales incentivize infinite delay because you can cash in so effectively on grandiose promises…
Yesterday, the company behind the Sam Altman-fronted Worldcoin project announced it had raised $115 million dollars in venture capital. The raise looks like an atavistic last gasp for the kind of prestige-driven, slot-machine structured Silicon Valley fundraising fostered by a decade…
When he first took office as head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2021, Gary Gensler warned crypto projects that he would be skeptical of “decentralization theater.” That’s a category of misleading claims sometimes made by DAOs [decentralized…
Ledger, the Paris-based hardware wallet maker, has had a terrible week. And in large part, it seems they have themselves to blame. Things started out badly enough. Ledger’s May 16 introduction of the “Ledger Recover” seed phrase recovery service was greeted…
U.S. lawmakers are currently locked in a passionate, high-stakes and entirely ridiculous battle over a strange quirk of U.S. law known as the “debt ceiling.” Since 1917, the U.S. budget appropriations process has separated the actual budget – which members of…
This week saw the charging and arrest of George Santos, the comically inventive Long Island Congressman. Almost unbelievably, Santos is connected to another apparently inveterate liar: Sam Bankman-Fried, the multiply-indicted founder and former CEO of collapsed crypto exchange FTX. Bankman-Fried’s ties…
Many bitcoiners have been up in arms about high fees amidst a surge in new activity on the original blockchain. Fees, which are set dynamically by a competitive bidding process, spiked to a staggering $30.19 for a simple bitcoin transaction on…
Most of us have heaved a desperate sigh of relief on waking from a terrifying nightmare. On June 17, 2016, Christoph Jentzch instead awoke inside of one. “I was sleeping. My brother called me, so my wife woke me up. She…