Edward Snowden weighs in on Bitcoin and government regulation in 2022,
Katie Haun raises $1.5 billion,
and is Malaysia going to make Bitcoin legal tender?
My name is Ben.
This is your nightly crypto news wrap-up.
Let's get it!
Before we get into the news tonight,
let's start at Frankie Candles and check out the markets.
Thanks, Ben!
Alright, guys. Let's jump in and do a little market watch here.
Bitcoin coming in at $42,815.
Up 1% for the day.
Ethereum coming in at $3,025.
Up 1.7% for the day.
We got XRP at 83¢ and Cardano at $1.10,
finally above that $1 level, up about 13% on the day.
Let's just go ahead and check the top gainers real quick.
41% for Loopring.
Looking real good.
We got Cardano, again, up 13% on the day.
Looking really good.
Very, very happy to see Cardano over that $1 mark.
Guys, things are looking pretty good.
We're seeing things pump.
Definitely happy about that.
If you want to follow me, Frankie Candles,
it's Frankie Candles on YouTube and then @Frankie_Candles on all socials.
Back to the news.
And I think in terms of getting it right,
there's basically only one thing that we need to do,
which is we need to nail private trade, right?
Somebody should be able to send something to anyone for anything.
And that shouldn't be something that we can interfere with.
That shouldn't be something, you know, the government of Canada, or whatever,
can say, "We're going to cut this off."
Because if we do that,
everybody's going to start doing it.
And we--
you know, that's not supposition. We already see it happening.
What if we could guarantee economic freedom instantly, right?
By standing up a system somewhere to anyone anywhere, who can connect,
who can access it,
and that can be, you know, right in your phone, whatever.
I think that is possible.
We've already established that with sort of private cryptocurrencies
that do have shielded transactions.
And that's the direction I think that it needs to go.
We have this presupposition that cash is anonymous,
that we have inherited from a time when meaningfully it was.
That is no longer true.
Everyone's favorite whistleblower is back at it again
to show everyone what's hiding behind the curtain.
Edward Snowden is most widely known for leaking top secret NSA documents
regarding mass surveillance by the NSA in 2013
and for his multiple appearances on The Joe Rogan podcast
talking about the future of security.
Snowden made another appearance at Filecoin's Camp Ethereal a few weeks ago.
If you haven't heard this interview,
I highly recommend that you give it a listen.
He breaks down why governments view crypto as an evolving threat.
Basically, since they believe crypto can be used to evade economic sanctions,
they'll label it as a national security issue.
He realizes that crypto is meant to empower those who seek financial privacy,
which is why it goes directly against the government's invasive nature.
We're still seeing very high valuations in the crypto space.
I will say, though, that some of those high valuations, you know,
some of those companies are actually profitable and have metrics that you can go look at,
and so I think it's important that we don't treat crypto and Web3 as a monolith
because they really are very different in terms of what problem they're tackling
in different projects out there.
Haun has invested through multiple bear markets,
sometimes called crypto winters,
and says that's when some of the best companies are built,
and as far as where the opportunities are,
she mentions blockchain, gaming and identity verification.
Former federal prosecutor Katie Haun has left her high-profile job at Andreessen Horowitz
to form her own VC firm, Haun Ventures.
She has already raised $1.5 billion,
and axios.com reports
that this appears to be the largest fund ever raised by a solo venture capitalist,
let alone by a solo female VC.
The fund is split into two parts---
$500 million for early stage investors,
the other billion dollars in accelerator fund for later stage projects.
If you don't know who Katie Haun is,
she created the first government crypto task force
and led the investigation into the Mt. Gox hack.
She's been on the board at Coinbase since 2017.
She's also on the board at Autograph and my favorite company OpenSea
and is involved in an array of other startups.
In an interview with CNBC, Haun mentioned,
"Web3 is the new era of the internet, and it deserves a new era of investors."
It will be interesting to learn about specifically which projects she will align her firm with
because she is, without a doubt, a force to be reckoned with.
Politicians in Malaysia are proposing to the government
that they should adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender.
Deputy minister Zahidi Zainul Abidin told Bloomberg,
"We hope the government can allow this.
We are trying to see how we can legalize this
so that we can develop youth participation in crypto and assist them."
If the central bank and Securities Commission of Malaysia approves the deputy minister's proposal,
that will be one more country checked off the list
and a first for the APAC region.
Comment below with what country you think will legalize crypto next.
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That's all I got.
Be blessed.
BitBoy out.