Almost the weekend, Blockfolians!
The Lede
Pausing from a hectic Iowa campaign schedule, Democratic darkhorse Andrew Yang paused to sit down with Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal about, among other things, crypto. They talk about consistent rules, threats to American competitiveness, and Yang’s belief that “I don't think you could impede it with regulation if you tried.”
What We’re Reading
🐬Stablecoins flippen ETH on Ethereum - As pointed out yesterday by the team at Messari, the amount of value being transferred by Ethereum comes more from stablecoins than from its native ETH, due primarily to Tether transitioning to Ethereum last year. A demonstration of just how relevant stablecoins are to this ecosystem.
💀No lie, TruStory is shutting down - File this one under “bummer, man” and “startups are really hard” and “I wish we knew the regulatory status of utility tokens” files. TruStory - started by ex Coinbase employees and funded by leading crypto and traditional VCs - was meant to provide a platform for productive debates through token staking. They say the model was too early - especially in light of a lack of clarity around token legal status.
💻Zcash votes to extend dev reward - But changes the way the funding is distributed, with 7% going to Electric Coin Company, 5% going to the Zcash Foundation, and 8% going to 3rd party grants. So far, the community seems to be generally supportive of (and not surprised by) the outcome.
A Really Big Number You Should Be Paying Attention To
$300 million
That’s the size of Bittrex’s new insurance fund - a new record for the industry that shows just how serious big players are about getting customers comfortable with custody.