Originally written on October 30, 2020 for PANONY/PANews: https://www.panewslab.com/en/articledetails/N8672127.html INTRODUCTION The one underlying theme that we have seen in the myriad valuation attempts of cryptocurrencies is the all too common, proverbial “we are still too early”. Valuations, which is referring to the exercise of running financial models in excel based on numerous factors that are subject to other subjective exercises of 拍脑袋 (a Chinese way of saying pulling numbers out of ...

Originally written on October 30, 2020 for PANONY/PANews: https://www.panewslab.com/en/articledetails/N8672127.html INTRODUCTION The one underlying theme that we have seen in the myriad valuation attempts of cryptocurrencies is the all too common, proverbial “we are still too early”. Valuations, which is referring to the exercise of running financial models in excel based on numerous factors that are subject to other subjective exercises of 拍脑袋 (a Chinese way of saying pulling numbers out of ...

Originally written on September 27, 2020 for PANONY/PANews: https://www.panewslab.com/en/articledetails/N1764853.html In a recent letter disseminated a few days ago, the OCC has announced fresh guidance on stablecoins. From here on out, the OCC will now allow US Banks to provide banking services to stablecoin issuers. As if they weren’t already but more on that later. The letter, which was drafted by Jonathan V. Gould, Senior Deputy Comptroller and Chief Counsel, lays out the interpretation o...

Originally written on September 27, 2020 for PANONY/PANews: https://www.panewslab.com/en/articledetails/N1764853.html In a recent letter disseminated a few days ago, the OCC has announced fresh guidance on stablecoins. From here on out, the OCC will now allow US Banks to provide banking services to stablecoin issuers. As if they weren’t already but more on that later. The letter, which was drafted by Jonathan V. Gould, Senior Deputy Comptroller and Chief Counsel, lays out the interpretation o...

Originally written on September 26, 2020 for PANONY/PANews: https://www.panewslab.com/en/articledetails/N3554013.html The past year in DeFi has carved out some obvious DeFi market leadership, but has it formed oligopolies in the space? In simple terms, the HHI is calculated by taking the total sum of the squares of each firm’s market share, and then multiplying it by 10,000. Depending on the value of the product from this equation, it will either fall in one of the value ranges depicted on th...

Originally written on September 26, 2020 for PANONY/PANews: https://www.panewslab.com/en/articledetails/N3554013.html The past year in DeFi has carved out some obvious DeFi market leadership, but has it formed oligopolies in the space? In simple terms, the HHI is calculated by taking the total sum of the squares of each firm’s market share, and then multiplying it by 10,000. Depending on the value of the product from this equation, it will either fall in one of the value ranges depicted on th...

“You didn’t want to push that transaction through because gas fees costed more than the transaction itself” Originally written on September 8, 2020 for PANONY/PANews: https://www.panewslab.com/en/articledetails/N1477767.html For those who have seen the blockbuster Wall Street movie, The Big Short, a film depicting certain actors who’ve bet against the housing market of 2008, there is a particular scene that can resonate well with what we are encountering with transaction fees on Ethereum. Whe...

“You didn’t want to push that transaction through because gas fees costed more than the transaction itself” Originally written on September 8, 2020 for PANONY/PANews: https://www.panewslab.com/en/articledetails/N1477767.html For those who have seen the blockbuster Wall Street movie, The Big Short, a film depicting certain actors who’ve bet against the housing market of 2008, there is a particular scene that can resonate well with what we are encountering with transaction fees on Ethereum. Whe...

Originally written on August 17, 2020 for PANONY/PANews: https://www.panewslab.com/en/articledetails/N2956855.html By now for most following the recent apace movements of the DeFi sector within the blockchain industry, the amount of bitcoin value utilized within these DeFi applications, via their respective layer 1 protocols, has skyrocketed well past our expectations. Ethereum, which has been designated as the default protocol for DeFi, has seen the bulk of this trend propagated onto its eco...

Originally written on August 17, 2020 for PANONY/PANews: https://www.panewslab.com/en/articledetails/N2956855.html By now for most following the recent apace movements of the DeFi sector within the blockchain industry, the amount of bitcoin value utilized within these DeFi applications, via their respective layer 1 protocols, has skyrocketed well past our expectations. Ethereum, which has been designated as the default protocol for DeFi, has seen the bulk of this trend propagated onto its eco...

Originally written on July 13, 2020 for PANONY: https://www.panewslab.com/en/articledetails/N5970475.html Introduction Let’s not confuse Handshake with A handshake, which seems to be the antiquated physical way of politely grabbing another person’s hands in a firm-like grip, through quick up and down motions to signal a greeting or an agreement. In some instances, that handshake might be awkwardly prolongated, evoking images of Trump’s notorious handshakes which are well documented on many so...

Originally written on July 13, 2020 for PANONY: https://www.panewslab.com/en/articledetails/N5970475.html Introduction Let’s not confuse Handshake with A handshake, which seems to be the antiquated physical way of politely grabbing another person’s hands in a firm-like grip, through quick up and down motions to signal a greeting or an agreement. In some instances, that handshake might be awkwardly prolongated, evoking images of Trump’s notorious handshakes which are well documented on many so...

Originally written on May 22, 2020 @ medium.com/tuoyuanresearch Overview Today marks the 10 year anniversary of the now legendary Bitcoin transaction of two Papa John’s pizzas, equivocally known as Bitcoin Pizza Day. As it happened, computer programmer, Laszlo Hanyecz, offered to pay 10,000 BTC for someone to order him pizza on the day of May 22, 2010. Now at current prices, 10,000 BTC is an ungodly amount compared to what it was trading at 10 years ago. Laszlo has now transpired to be a hous...

Originally written on May 22, 2020 @ medium.com/tuoyuanresearch Overview Today marks the 10 year anniversary of the now legendary Bitcoin transaction of two Papa John’s pizzas, equivocally known as Bitcoin Pizza Day. As it happened, computer programmer, Laszlo Hanyecz, offered to pay 10,000 BTC for someone to order him pizza on the day of May 22, 2010. Now at current prices, 10,000 BTC is an ungodly amount compared to what it was trading at 10 years ago. Laszlo has now transpired to be a hous...

Originally written on March 31, 2020 @ medium.com/tuoyuanresearchPreludeAs Neo, along with a host of other smart contract platforms, gears up for the upgrade of their mainnet, specifically Neo 3.0, it’s astonishing to see how far this project has gone and with a deep understatement, needs to further go in order to realize its goals it was set out for in its original whitepaper under the moniker, Antshares. Being situated in Shanghai specifically, although their core developer team and global ...

Originally written on March 31, 2020 @ medium.com/tuoyuanresearchPreludeAs Neo, along with a host of other smart contract platforms, gears up for the upgrade of their mainnet, specifically Neo 3.0, it’s astonishing to see how far this project has gone and with a deep understatement, needs to further go in order to realize its goals it was set out for in its original whitepaper under the moniker, Antshares. Being situated in Shanghai specifically, although their core developer team and global ...

Part 1 The Melon Protocol positions itself to be the frontier to Asset Management 3.0, in the same manner of the Web3 movement, one could say. But to take a step back what was Asset Management 1.0 and Asset Management 2.0? If you look through Melon’s online media outlets, you will come across these two terminologies every so often without a clear-cut definition to them, but if we had to delineate between the two: -Asset Management 1.0 could be characterized as the era BEFORE prime brokerage s...

Part 1 The Melon Protocol positions itself to be the frontier to Asset Management 3.0, in the same manner of the Web3 movement, one could say. But to take a step back what was Asset Management 1.0 and Asset Management 2.0? If you look through Melon’s online media outlets, you will come across these two terminologies every so often without a clear-cut definition to them, but if we had to delineate between the two: -Asset Management 1.0 could be characterized as the era BEFORE prime brokerage s...

Originally written in November 29, 2019 @ medium.com/tuoyuanresearch The Gist When I heard that someone bought a virtual plot of land for $175,000 USD (not a typo), I honestly couldn’t even process the thought. What sane person can justify spending that amount of money on a virtual plot of land for a game that hardly anyone even uses? $175,000??? For a virtual plot of land???? How can you make the argument that the $175,000 is better spent than sending it to the ASPCA after watching the Sarah...

Originally written in November 29, 2019 @ medium.com/tuoyuanresearch The Gist When I heard that someone bought a virtual plot of land for $175,000 USD (not a typo), I honestly couldn’t even process the thought. What sane person can justify spending that amount of money on a virtual plot of land for a game that hardly anyone even uses? $175,000??? For a virtual plot of land???? How can you make the argument that the $175,000 is better spent than sending it to the ASPCA after watching the Sarah...

Originally written in November 22, 2019 @ medium.com/tuoyuanresearch (Actually, Sia has no relation to Sia) SUMMARY “Salil Deshpande of Bain Capital told CoinDesk that distributed, permissionless storage options are the cornerstone of decentralized apps (dapps) and that Nebulous (Sia) is the only investable startup with a live solution that lacks glaring technical issues.” In November of 2018 Sia closed their $3.25 million series a round of funding led by Bain Capital Ventures. So what is it ...

Originally written in November 22, 2019 @ medium.com/tuoyuanresearch (Actually, Sia has no relation to Sia) SUMMARY “Salil Deshpande of Bain Capital told CoinDesk that distributed, permissionless storage options are the cornerstone of decentralized apps (dapps) and that Nebulous (Sia) is the only investable startup with a live solution that lacks glaring technical issues.” In November of 2018 Sia closed their $3.25 million series a round of funding led by Bain Capital Ventures. So what is it ...

Originally written in November 11, 2019 @ medium.com/tuoyuanresearch SUMMARY The Ravencoin protocol has presented itself as a very unique blockchain project. No ICO. No premine. No negative publicity. All decentralization. And in it for the long game. Ravencoin’s potential is almost certainly reliant on the tokenization trend that we are seeing being played out in almost every aspect of crypto. Irrespective of how it’s own native token price unfolds, or more so to what direction Bitcoin goes ...

Originally written in November 11, 2019 @ medium.com/tuoyuanresearch SUMMARY The Ravencoin protocol has presented itself as a very unique blockchain project. No ICO. No premine. No negative publicity. All decentralization. And in it for the long game. Ravencoin’s potential is almost certainly reliant on the tokenization trend that we are seeing being played out in almost every aspect of crypto. Irrespective of how it’s own native token price unfolds, or more so to what direction Bitcoin goes ...