Letter #4 from the CEO
Howdy. This is Taylor, CEO of Hedgehog, the platform that eliminates the need for a crypto trader to use Microsoft Excel to track their portfolio. Every Thursday I send a brief note about the crypto ecosystem, Hedgehog, and our awesome community.
*Exhales Deeply*
Oh, my apologies. I didn’t mean for my sigh of relief to be palpable*. I was just indulging in the fact that Bitcoin finally broke 40k again after over a month of declines**.
Why did BTC surge over the past week? If you believe that news drives the market, an erroneous suggestion that Amazon will accept bitcoin as payment in the future might be the cause. Jeffery Bezos (CEO, Entrepreneur, born in 1964), had no comment, but this rumor also existed in 2018, 2019, and 2020.
Tldr: I want to believe. Come on Jeffrey, you can do it. Pave the way, put your back into it.
We saw the memes months ago, but it’s finally a reality (kind of). If you live in Brazil, you can now use Dogecoin to buy dog treats at Burger King. I didn’t even know BK sold dog treats, but I’m into it. Wow adoption. Such progress.
Tldr: Puppies and Burgers are important to the overall economic health of the South American markets.
While on the note of Latin America, some not-so-good news from El Salvador. Ever since the country formally made plans to give Bitcoin the same status as the U.S. dollar (which takes effect on Sep 7, 2021), some have taken to the streets to protest.
“For people who earn minimum wage, one moment you can have $300 in Bitcoin and the next day the $300 can become $50. Today we have seen how the price of cryptocurrency is falling.”
In addition to fears of significant volatility, protesters also had concerns of money laundering and government corruption.
The real question is whether BTC is better than the inflationary rate of their default currency – here’s the original announcement.
Tldr: El Salvador is dope. Fiat is not dope. Criminals use cash, not Bitcoin Cash.
Remember that $70 million ransomware attack by REvil that took place a few weeks ago? I don’t. And I no longer know if it’s because I’m disconnected, or if it’s because industry hacks have become a frequent occurrence.
With that in mind, get yourself a Hardware wallet. How? Talk to us! This week, we’ll be giving anyone who replies to our newsletter a chance to win a a Ledger Nano S ***.
Tldr: Your keys, your coins.
Hedgehog
We’ve got some pretty nifty product updates.
First, #BugFixes. We've resolved a ton of bugs that were preventing several users from syncing with their Coinbase accounts. Keep reporting them bugs and we’ll squash them.
Tldr: It’s a bug's life.
Not everyone is a pro at configuring API keys. That is why we’ve tasked our marketing team with creating step-by-step walkthroughs with detailed screenshots on how to authenticate one’s exchange. 7 down, 143 to go.
TLDR: Trust no one. Unrelated, who wants free candy? ****
And yes, I’ve been reading all of your emails re: DeFi syncing. It’s at the top of our development roadmap*****. We’re close. We’re so very close to getting this shipped.
Tldr: Complicated things are complicated.
As a final note for the handful of you who made it to the end, I want to give an update on our team, and about family: Peter Schreyer (our lead front end developer) is welcoming a new little hoglet into the Hedgehog family! Here’s a photo of baby Ceci:
Tldr: Girls run the world.
Interesting Links
Vitalik’s Shib Donation
Funding infrastructure bill with crypto taxes
From The Community:
Here’s the meme of the week: from the Hedgehog Discord Laugh a little. Cry a little. Totally up to you.
Peace out, homeslice.
– Taylor
*…or did I…
** …and years and years of increases, obviously. Bitcoin is the best performing asset of the decade (link)
*** 10 extra entries if you tell me the name of your dog, and the hypothetical name of your dog's crypto currency.