¡Hola compadres! This is Taylor, CEO of Hedgehog, where you can manage your whole crypto portfolio in one place. Sync your wallets and exchanges, then you’re good to go. In the nearish future, Hedgehog custody will be an option. Big things coming, baby, big things! Imagine me grinning and cracking my knuckles — gotta keep the coding hands limber 😉
As usual, there’s a giveaway at the end of the newsletter. Last week, I asked what our hypothetical rapper names would be. The best answer was from James, who declared that his rapper name would just be ‘James’ and mine would be ‘Taylor’. So look forward to a totally legit album from rapper duo ‘James Taylor’ in the future. I see no legal issues with this.
I made the question ultra easy this week. Want a Ledger Nano S hardware wallet? Make sure you make it to the bottom of the email for a chance to win!
An important part of the Hedgehog mission is education. People can’t benefit from crypto if they don’t understand what it is, how it works, and why there are so many warnings to be cautious.
Key to understanding crypto is simply understanding finance, because crypto is as much finance as it is tech. Most of us regular investors aren’t getting deeply involved in DAO governance or whatever, so it’s arguably more important to understand the financial concepts at play. For example, let’s revisit supply and demand:
What is Crypto Arbitrage & How To Profit From It?
Crypto arbitrage opportunities arise as a result of the inevitable inefficiencies in markets and — as odd as it may sound — is an important tool in correcting these inefficiencies. The very act of exploiting these price differences eliminates these inefficiencies. Let’s break down what that means.
Say, for example, Bitcoin is trading at $19,900 on OKX and at $20,000 on Binance. One might buy a Bitcoin on OKX, send it to Binance, then sell it, pocketing the $100 difference. Now, the act of buying slightly increases the price of Bitcoin on OKX, likewise, selling on Binance decreases its price there a little. Do this enough times, and eventually, the prices on both exchanges converge, erasing the price difference and, sadly, any chances you had of making more free money.
Of course, “free money” is always hard to get your hands on: “Arbitrage opportunities are hard to find in today's market, thanks to advanced computerized systems designed to correct any inefficiencies in the pricing of assets. And when they do arise, trading firms with lots of computing power at their disposal and teams of highly-trained engineers whose job is to program super-fast bots are usually the first to get to them.”
Learn more about crypto arbitrage on the Hedgeblog:
Lipsa Das
Tldr: Most people know the phrase “Gotta spend money to make money,” but few know that it ends with, “but if you spend too much money you can’t make any money.” #TheMoreYouKnow
On the other hand, crypto is also as much tech as it is finance! It’s the interplay between the two that make the space so gosh darn interesting! Now, if you’re like me, I bet you woke up this morning, grabbed a cup of coffee, and thought, “I wonder how Ethereum proof-of-stake consensus works?”
“Ethereum’s PoS implementation has been teased for the better half of a decade now,” author foobar (@0xfoobar) acknowledges, “but with the beacon chain running for 18 months straight and successful live merges on multiple testnets the initial implementation is largely finalized.”
The skeptical discussion on Hacker News is worth skimming, and check out last year’s Hedgeblog post about the high-level goals for Eth2, which is surely going to arrive sometime this century…
Tldr: Maybe grab two cups of coffee this morning. You know what? Let’s make it three.
Quick Hits
MakerDAO Members Vote on Issuing $30M Loan To Societe Generale
Whoa, this sounds like a big step: “The Maker community will soon vote on whether to issue a 30M DAI loan to SG Forge — a blockchain-focused subsidiary of Societe Generale, the No. 3 bank in France with €1.5T ($1.5T) in assets. If passed, SG Forge will use the loan, worth $30M, to refinance €40M worth of bonds on its balance sheet.” Crypto keeps intertwining further with tradfi.
Tldr: Banks are taking out crypto loans now? OH HOW THE TABLES HAVE TURNED.
What is STORJ? And, How Is It Better Than AWS?
Whether STORJ is actually better than AWS is a matter of opinion, but some of the features sound neat: “Storj's architecture is particularly suited to backing up databases. This is because Storj will regularly take snapshots of your database and the associated backed-up data.”
Tldr: You know who thinks about STORJ the most? Jeff. Jeffrey Bezos (Amazon CEO, entrepreneur, born in 1964)
How a fake job offer took down the world’s most popular crypto game (Axie Infinity)
One of those crazy high-effort hacking stories.
Tldr: I wonder if the hacker lists this LinkedIn hack on their LinkedIn. Do hackers even use LinkedIn? Does… anyone use LinkedIn? (Actually we have a company page on LinkedIn, follow us.)
What is the ENS 10k Club?
Numerology ain’t going nowhere in the digital age.
Tldr: Owning a 4-character URL isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? Owning a 38-character URL. Yup. 100%.
Aping into Progress: A Report on Crypto Philanthropy
Rich people want to influence the world according to their vision of the good. For example:
Consider the enigma of Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO/founder of FTX and youngest billionaire in the world at the time of his minting. Bankman-Fried openly declares the ultimate goal of his crypto efforts as ‘earn-to-give,’ a style of philanthropy aligned with the effective altruist movement (described more below). His net worth is tens of billions of dollars, and to a modest extent it’s recession-proof. It’s hard to overstate how much of an influence SBF’s niche set of beliefs will have, and he’s only one of dozens of individuals in crypto who hold such levels of influence.
Please do consider the enigma of SBF — there’s a Hedgeblog profile of him 😎
Tldr: SBF is very philanthropic. SBF’s hair on the other hand can be a bit stingy with the tips.
Ultra-easy giveaway question: How do you take your coffee? Black? Two packets of sugar? Nineteen packets of sugar? Are you British, and pour your coffee out of the cup to make room for tea? Reply to this email with your answer for the chance to win a Ledger Nano S hardware wallet!
In closing… ¿Dónde está la biblioteca?
— Taylor
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