Top crypto stories of week 15, 2024
Mon 8 to Sun 14 April 2024
The 20 top stories on Kiwi News from Mon 8 to Sun 14 April 2024, ranked by upvotes, comments and clicks, with 40 comments in total. Most-shared sources: warpcast.com, github.com, youtube.com.
Text under a title is an AI summary of the linked article.
- Fighting for DeFi (blog.uniswap.org)
Uniswap Labs said it received a Wells notice from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission saying the SEC plans to recommend legal action against it, and that it will keep its products available and keep shipping. The company argues the move is a political effort to target builders of blockchain technology and that the law does not support SEC jurisdiction over the Uniswap Protocol. It cites the SEC v. Ripple ruling on secondary market transactions and the Risley v. Uniswap Labs decision, which said securities law concerns are better addressed to Congress. It also states that the Uniswap Protocol has processed $2 trillion in transactions without a hack and uses 25% of Ethereum's blockspace.
- Rise, Marginalization & Return of the Niche Internet (kanfa.macbudkowski.com)
Niche communities built around deep interest in one subject have been marginalized by ad-driven platforms, though the text claims they can return stronger thanks to recent changes in technology and business models. It traces how Yahoo shifted from a curated list toward mainstream traffic, and how MySpace and Facebook kept users on their sites by limiting external links to show more ads. The text argues that ad-based models lean toward mainstream audiences and will likely penalize external links, and it notes that Reddit's revenue is 150 times smaller than Meta's.
- $Degen: funding the future on farcaster and beyond? (paragraph.xyz)
This Paragraph article by papajams.eth describes how the $Degen memecoin, launched three months earlier by developer Jacek on the Farcaster social network, has funded awards through the Tip O' The Hat (TOTH) initiative, in which members pool daily tips to reward deserving creators. The author states that over $1m (approximately $1,179,139.59 at a $0.045 average DEGEN price) had been awarded so far to artists, developers, builders, journalists and others. The article also argues that tipping could act as advertising, funding and a more egalitarian way to reward creators, while noting that rug pulls and honeypot attacks have already appeared on the degen L3 chain.
- People selling mirrors Twitter account (twitter.com)
- Base financial performance 2023-2024 dashboard (dune.com)
- The future of culture is tokenized (lucanetz.substack.com)
The article argues that culture will be the main focus of tokenization, and that crypto's future lies in "Culture Tokens" rather than in faster or cheaper infrastructure. It lists subcategories including Social Tokens, IP Tokens, Consumer Brand Tokens, NFTs, Historical Artifact Tokens, Meme Tokens and Movement Tokens. The author cites GME and DJT as examples of culture-driven financial assets, and proposes a licensing model in which Star Wars would receive 15% of a "$Stars" token supply with monthly unlocks. The piece urges builders to develop culture-focused products.
- Web3 Social is All-in on World-Building (newsletter.auditless.com)
- The internet’s distribution problem (onethingnewsletter.substack.com)
Kyle Chayka argues that distribution through social media has failed media companies, and that publications should instead cultivate direct relationships with readers. He says social platforms rewarded generic content and linking out is now algorithmically discouraged, while BuzzFeed and Vice have all but disappeared. Chayka cites Nilay Patel's The Verge, which added quick posts and editorial modules to draw people to its homepage, and newsletters, Patreon subscriptions and email as more controllable options. He contends that smaller, slower distribution can build mutual trust and more durable institutions.
- Polynya: Definancialize (warpcast.com)
- Ethereum ETF Approval Could Come Monday (decrypt.co)
Hong Kong could approve spot Ethereum and Bitcoin ETFs as soon as Monday, according to a Friday Bloomberg report cited in the article. The report says Chinese asset managers Harvest Fund Management, Bosera Asset Management, and HashKey Capital are expected to receive regulatory approval for ETFs on the two top digital assets. The article notes that the approval would come less than a week before the Bitcoin halving and amid fading prospects for spot Ethereum ETFs in the U.S. HashKey Capital's involvement dates back to January, when the Singapore-based firm announced a $500 million fund focused on blockchain initiatives. The three firms did not immediately respond to Decrypt's request for comment.
- Opinion: Why are we still afraid of digital fashion? (jingdaily.com)
- Hypersub Accelerator (withfabric.xyz)
- My 5 strongest pieces on “niche internet”. (warpcast.com)
- The Eclipse and the Reclamation of Looking at the Same Thing (sceneswithsimon.com)
The writer argues that the April 8 total solar eclipse offered a brief, shared experience that people should try to repeat through local, offline life rather than relying on the sky. Describing watching it from DC, the writer says millions across populous parts of Northern America gathered outside, which felt like a reclaiming of shared reality from screens. The writer links this to a wish to reinvest in local culture, such as subsidising arts, sports and community groups, and to balance digital life with connection to place.
- Rolod0x, a Web3 Address Book (github.com)
rolod0x is a free, open-source cross-browser extension that provides a private, local-only onchain address book for labeling blockchain addresses. Once addresses are labeled, the extension shows those labels on any website where the addresses appear, such as Etherscan transaction pages. It works on any EVM-based blockchain and Solana, and it can be added directly from a web page by right-clicking an address. The project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3 or later, and its donation options include Gitcoin Grants Round 20 and the Giveth platform.
- The murder game revolution that has gripped China (youtube.com)
- ERC-7673: Distinguishable base256emoji addresses (github.com)
ERC-7673 is a draft Ethereum standard, authored by William Morriss, proposing that account addresses be depicted and entered as strings of 20 emoji using a base256emoji encoding instead of hexadecimal. The proposal argues that humans often fail to distinguish long hexadecimal strings, especially when they match at the beginning and end, and that this is exploited by spoofing attacks that have misled tens of thousands of ether and other tokens. Under the standard, user interfaces would be required to display addresses as base256emoji and accept them as input, and would be encouraged to recognize strings of exactly 20 valid emoji as addresses. The draft states that each emoji maps to one byte, so addresses use half as many characters, and that the encoding can be transcoded to and from hexadecimal.
- Aggregation Theory (stratechery.com)
Aggregation Theory, developed by Ben Thompson, is presented as a framework for understanding business in the Internet age, where zero distribution costs, zero marginal costs and zero transaction costs reshape industries and create new moats. The page is a site index listing Thompson's weekly articles, subscription-only Daily Updates and consulting and speaking work. Its article titles and summaries apply the theory to topics such as Uber, Facebook, Google, Netflix, the FANG companies and antitrust cases against aggregators.
- When you suffer from ETHmaximysis (youtube.com)
- The Power of Repetition, Generative Art on The Base Blockchain (blog.teji.io)