Geronimo, friends, it’s Colton here, the CEO of Hedgehog, the app that helps you buy baskets of cryptocurrency and automate your digital asset exposure wherever you custody funds. Don’t forget that also now includes a self-custody MPC wallet where Hedgehog can invest on-chain on your behalf without knowing your private key! Watch the short demo, coming soon to an app near you.
We’re so excited about this feature, I had to write about the thinking behind it in CoinDesk’s Crypto for Advisors newsletter this week. Finally you can hold your funds on-chain and we can take care of all the nitty gritty details, but it’s still your keys, your coins. Just be patient as we roll out all the networks and tokens your heart could desire.
In the meantime, here are some quick hits from the week:
Anyone know how to work an airdrop?
Several big airdrops occurred this week, including Eigenlayer, Friend.tech, Kamino, Renzo, and more. Universally, these airdrops were panned as unfair to small dollar contributors, poorly executed due to insignificant buy-side markets, or otherwise fraudulent because they added VPN blockers and global jurisdiction denylists after locking up stakers' money. Are the apologies too little, too late? That’s up for the community to decide.
Elephants that fly
Both Coinbase and Block beat earnings expectations this quarter in dramatic fashion, with the eponymous Base L2 network driving $18M in profits for its publicly traded counterpart, and Bitcoin driving huge revenue for the payments firm formerly known as Square. Such significant revenues that Block is commiting to putting 10% of its BTC-related profits into a dollar-cost averaging program.
Nice Americans
Roger Ver, affectionately known as Bitcoin Jesus for his early affiliation with Bitcoin and later Bitcoin Cash, was arrested this week for tax evasion. It’s a sad story, as the guy did report his taxes and officially renounce his US citizenship, but it seems the taxman believes they were cheated. Pay your taxes kids, and don’t skimp on the reporting. However bad the satoshis leaving your wallet feels, it’s not as bad as the scratchy hems on the orange jumpsuit.
Just ask CZ, the former CEO of Binance, who paid his $50m fine last year and snagged a mere 4 month prison sentence for presiding over one of the most lucrative illegal solicitations of US customers in history alongside alleged violations of the Bank Secrecy Act.
Four months in prison and exile from the USA for $40 billion in your pocket—would you do it? Excuse me ser, I have principles.
Weekly feature
Today we’re featuring Unicorn (UNICORN), the mysterious unlaunched Cosmos IBC network that’s getting hype for its targeted airdrop reserved for active NFT project holders like Milady, Pudgy Penguins, Wassies, and others.
Why feature them today? Well, they’ve got an airdrop that may be incredibly disappointing or really lucrative, or otherwise a phishing attack or rugpull, and it’s kind of a gamble on how much time you want to put into it to understand what it’s about, much like Eigenlayer or Friend tech. Do it for the sick 90s website and Kazaa era tunes, I guess? You can’t actually include it in your portfolio with other tokens yet, but it feels good to dream sometimes.
Please forgive my tardiness the last couple weeks, we’ve been hard at work putting out new product while trying to find new clients and partners. Would you recommend our app to a friend? Why or why not?
Keep hedging,
— Colton