August 5, 2020 | Issue #129

MUST READS

Square Did $875M of Bitcoin Revenue During Q2 2020

On Tuesday, payments company, Square (SQ), reported that revenue made from selling Bitcoin to its Cash App customers in Q2 totaled $875 million. That's 6x the same time last year and 186% more than Q1 of this year.

Square has now purchased more than $1.5 billion in Bitcoin over the last twelve months.

Square stresses it only takes a “small margin” selling Bitcoin to customers, but Q2’s results show it made $17 million profit – an increase of 711% year-on-year.

The Portnoy Pump?

Who’s ready to see a couple of Bitcoin billionaires shilling crypto in their old rowing uniforms?

Barstool Sports head, Dave Portnoy, has been streaming and tweeting about Bitcoin recently... So much that he invited the Winklevoss twins to show him how to use it… albeit in their college rowing outfits. As it turns out, they’ve accepted... and the event will likely be streamed online and coming soon.

Portnoy, by the way, has 1.7 million followers on Twitter and 750,000 on Facebook. If the hordes of dudes who take his day-trading tips follow him into crypto, this could be very good for Bitcoin or assets like GBTC and SQ (article above).

Related: Joe Rogan is getting pretty vocal about Bitcoin these days as well (all thanks to his recent Cash App ad rolls).

Coinbase Exploring 19 Additional Crypto Assets

Coinbase has announced that it is exploring the addition of 19 assets for listing.

The assets being explored include:

Ampleforth (AMPL)
Band Protocol (BAND)
Balancer (BAL)
Blockstack (STX)
Curve (yCurve)
Fetch.ai (FET)
Flexacoin (FXC)
Helium (HNT)
Hedera Hashgraph (HBAR)
Kava (KAVA)
Melon (MLN)
Ocean Protocol (OCEAN)
Paxos Gold (PAXG)
Reserve Rights (RSR; Coinbase is an investor in Reserve)
tBTC (TBTC)
The Graph
THETA (THETA)
UMA (UMA)
Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC)

As you may have guessed, the Coinbase pump is, once again, in full-effect. Here's your proof, courtesy of Messari Resarch.

Our guess is that Reserve Rights (RSR) and UMA (UMA) are locked in... but only due to the fact that Coinbase Ventures is an investor in each project.

The #1 Gold Pick for this New Gold Bull Market

Gold prices made history yesterday, breaking the $2,000 barrier.

But now’s not the time to rush out and buy ANY gold bars, stocks, or coins. While the best miners can return hundreds of percent in a gold bull market – most of them are still extremely risky.

Priced around $7 today, there's a gold play that's much, much better.

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DEEP DIVE

Crypto Venture Fund Raises $110 Million From Universities

Electric Capital, a San Francisco-based venture fund, said it will use $110 million raised from university endowments and other nonprofits to invest in cryptocurrencies and related businesses.

The fund closed in May, and about a third of the assets have been invested already in Bitcoin, Ether and several projects including the DerivaDEX exchange.

“Bitcoin and Ethereum are a minority of the fund, our thoughts are more toward Defi protocols, apps built on top of this stuff.”

Ethereum Mining Rewards Hit All-Time High. Here’s Why it Matters

Ethereum is up more than 180% since March 2020 lows, but data from the blockchain suggests the world’s second-most popular digital asset may have further to climb.

Key takeaways:

Ethereum is becoming a lot more useful to people as new dapps and more innovation comes on board
The use of functional applications for lending, borrowing, and earning returns is reflected in significantly higher gas usage
Miners are earning more now than they ever did, even during ETH's ATH of $1,400

Government-fueled Crypto Bull Market Underway

U.S. regulators released a shocking letter in July that will impact the income, savings and wealth of every citizen.

And it’s set to open the floodgates to a new rally in the fastest-growing market in history.

Here’s how to get in on the action now…

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REGULATORY FRONT

Dark Web Drugs Vendors Charged with Trafficking $270M in Bitcoin

An American dark web vendor and a Costa Rican pharmacist have been charged with trafficking illegal drugs worth around $270 million in Bitcoin.

David Pate allegedly sold opioid pills sent to him by Jose Hou, concealed in tourist merchandise such as maracas. The narcotics were advertised on various dark web marketplaces including the now-defunct Silk Road and AlphaBay, between 2013 and 2018.

“These charges are a warning to drug traffickers worldwide that neither the shroud of the darknet or of virtual currency can hide their illegal activities from the vigilance of US law enforcement”

Bitfinex Offers $400M Reward for 120,000 Bitcoin Hack

Crypto exchange Bitfinex is offering $400 million as a reward for anyone who can put the exchange in contact with the hackers who stole 120,000 Bitcoin (now worth more than $1.3 billion) from the exchange in 2016.

Bitcoin Wallet Ledger’s Database Hacked for 1 Million Emails

Hardware wallet maker, Ledger, suffered a massive breach of 1 million customer emails, home addresses, and e-commerce documents in June. No user funds were affected but that wasn't enough to prevent huge uproar from the community.

Read Ledger's response here.

Putin's New Crypto Law

Cryptocurrencies are now officially legal as digital financial assets in Russia, but they are prohibited from being used as a form of payment.

Generally speaking, the new law reflects the Bank of Russia's skeptical view of cryptocurrencies.