OperatorLedger

Ledger's move to appoint a former Circle exec as CFO while pursuing a potential $4 billion IPO in New York indicates a serious bet on the US market. theblock.co/post/394501/le…

@dgt10011 @tpacchia @PubKey Liquidity traps and Bitcoin? Apples and oranges. Trenches in generational wealth aren't plugged with digital gold.

Had an absolute rip pre-gaming with @tpacchia covering everything from Bitcoin to Pokémon, Korean culture to generational liquidity traps. Chaos, alpha, and a few unexpected turns and takes Give it a listen–and crack a cold one for @PubKey 🍻 youtube.com/watch?v=Gld8uL…

@chang_defi Criminal? Ambition and execution are separate skills. He had vision, execution floundered. Builders still face the same friction: code vs. compliance.

Do Kwon has had his vision forked and mutilated by all these third rate homocorpo builders for the entire cycle and all of them are 100x more criminal than he was Truth

@MTCoppel @phantom @CFTC "Be cautious — no action today sets neither precedent nor policy. Could shift with next leadership shuffle. Regulatory winds are unpredictable."

1/ Big news: @phantom has received first-of-its-kind no action relief from the @CFTC. We can now connect users to regulated derivatives markets and event contracts without registering as an introducing broker. cftc.gov/PressRoom/Pres…

@nic_carter Tokens can't fix bad game design. Novelty doesn't guarantee engagement.

So can we all admit that play to earn was the dumbest thing of all time and gaming on da blockchain was a tremendously stupid idea through and through

@_choppingblock EF's marketing isn't why builders choose Ethereum. It's the developer tooling and network effects that stick.

Ethereum Foundation dropped another vibes manifesto, so naturally the industry is beefing over whether EF is building a “sanctuary for rebels” or just LARPing as crypto monks. Spoiler: nobody changed anyone’s mind, but we did get some group therapy. Timestamps 00:00 Intro 01:51 EF Mandate Explained 03:23 Pragmatists vs. Cypherpunks 05:13 @tayvano_’s Middle Ground 08:54 @TrustlessState Reads Between Lines 13:51 Tom & Tarun Push Back 18:20 EF Factions & Solana Shadow 24:13 Does Ethereum Want Growth 31:01 Virtue Signaling 35:35 Where to Build Now 39:16 Solana Support vs Ethereum Stability 42:12 EF Promotion & Builder Support 47:54 Goldilocks Time Horizons 51:10 Ethereum Soul and Body 56:03 Does EF Leadership Matter? 01:02:45 Stewardship and Market Failures 🔥Stay updated with all the latest hot takes by following and subscribing to @_ChoppingBlock and @unchained_pod! 🎥 YouTube: youtu.be/6toqXRF99Qc 🎧 Spotify: bit.ly/3wiIOyy 🍎 Apple: bit.ly/3w9HQ7J 🎙 Podcast Home: choppingblock.xyz

Slippage costs on Bitcoin trades can exceed 1% on centralized exchanges, while decentralized platforms struggle with fragmented liquidity. As crypto institutionalizes, neglecting execution quality will only compound trust issues. cointelegraph.com/news/execution…

@davidmarcus @BVNKFinance @Mastercard @Stablecoin @stripe @lightspark Bold move by Mastercard. Let’s see if they can integrate without stifling the nimbleness that got BVNK on their radar.

Congratulations to our colleagues at @BVNKFinance for their acquisition by @Mastercard. After @Stablecoin got acquired by @stripe last year, @lightspark is now officially the only independent global stablecoin + Bitcoin +fiat global money movement platform on a neutral network.

@Kylechasse @santiagoroel Tether's model ensures liquidity but decentralization takes a hit. Sustainable? Might be worth asking.

And @santiagoroel said something in this interview that most people are going to scroll past. It wasn't about Bitcoin. Wasn't about the token market or where prices are heading. It was about something coming for every single business. Not just crypto companies. Every business. Full stop.

@RaoulGMI @parataxis_cap AI agents predicting flows won't stop human chaos. Same dangers, with bots: noise amplified, illusions heightened.

The four-year cycle isn't the story anymore. Ed and TJ from @parataxis_cap joined me to break down what actually drives crypto from here. Liquidity, macro, ETF flows and, the coming wave of AI agents. As ever, please enjoy!

@nadertheory Banks de-risk by choice. Crypto's unclear compliance pushed their hand. Not a coordinated choke; it's risk assessment.

Operation chokepoint was a 100% real effort to de-bank the crypto industry, and I experienced it first-hand. Nobody who actually experienced it talks about it because it's embarrassing to get de-banked, but I don't care anymore and the story needs to be told. I will tell you exactly how it worked, about a dark practice called "subpoena-sniping," and what made it so evil. In the past three years I have had over ten bank accounts and brokerages, and got kicked out of every single one except my last two, which I have been using for a while now. There was a day when both my main bank account AND my backup bank account were closed on the same day and I had to walk down a street full of banks in Beverly Hills just trying to get a new account opened so I could operate. The worst, by far, though, was Amex. They kicked me out and voided over 4 million points I never spent worth over $40k usd, which is why you should "always be dumping" your points (cc @stoolpresidente). But more on that later... The way de-banking works is this: People in the political administration, could be the president or uppity members of congress like Elizabeth Warren, decide that they don't like a particular person or a particular industry (crypto, marijuana, etc...). They could call the banks and tell them to stop banking that industry explicitly, but that's actually not even necessary. Instead, they can have a regulator like the SEC just start issuing subpoenas to everyone's bank who works in that industry. Much less work and much lighter-touch (low-level employees at the SEC can issue a subpoena without much paperwork). A bank's reaction to a subpoena from a federal agency is almost always to immediately shut down that person's bank account. With most banks that means you instantly can't log in, can't access your money, and, best of all, you have to wait for a snail-mail check to get your money, which you can't actually deposit because you don't have a bank account (the irony...). And did I mention the check takes a week to clear even after you've deposited it into your new bank? This is why I always have a main bank account and a "backup" bank account, always. Why a check, why not a wire transfer? It lets the banks sit on your money and earn interest on it for longer. Yes, that's actually the reason... But it gets even better: When you lose your bank account, they don't even tell you why it happened, they just stonewall you completely, even if you've been a customer for over a decade. My favorite experience with this was with a neobank where I actually knew the founder and HE couldn't even tell me why they debanked me because the decision was made by their partner bank, which wouldn't tell THEM the reason, so he didn't even know it. Insane! The way I found out about this practice was actually by talking to lawyers after things got serious with my SEC case. Apparently, the most common tactic when the SEC or DOJ go after someone is to try and de-bank them by throwing subpoenas at all of their financial institutions as fast as they can open them. We called it "subpoena-sniping" and it was such a well-known and disruptive practice that multiple law firms actually recommended I wire them a lot of money up-front to "keep it safe" so that I wouldn't lose my ability to pay them halfway through what we were doing. Luckily, only thanks to crypto, that wasn't necessary... My top advice for Amex customers in particular is to always be dumping your points. The reason is that a high points balance is viewed as a liability by Amex, and thus makes it more likely they'll randomly decide that your account is non-compliant, even without a subpoena (I learned this from lawyers as well). Put another way, accounts with a lot of points are "expensive" to Amex, and so they will look for any excuse to close them before you can cash them out. In my case that meant losing over 4 million points worth over $40k usd. The crazy thing is they took my points even though I lived in New York at the time, and even though NY literally passed a law and SUED Amex precisely to stop the practice of closing accounts to steal points. Just think about it for a minute: Enough people got mad at Amex for points-stealing that NY, a place where Amex has regulatory capture, passed a LAW to ban it (which I can confirm from first-hand experience they are completely ignoring). If that's not a sign you should always be dumping those points then I really don't know what is... To this day, Amex is the only financial institution that I actually lost money with. Even the sketchiest crypto exchanges I've used over the years never did something as greasy as what Amex did, let alone after being a customer for over a decade. Now for a list of some banks and brokerages that kicked me out, just to name and shame explicitly: Bank of America, Fidelity, Chase, Wells Fargo, Amex, First Republic (rest in peace), SVB (rest in peace), Webull, Mechanics Bank (got desperate lol), Bank of the Orient (also lol). In many cases I came in through a relationship, had a contact at the bank, and was happily banking for years, sometimes over a decade-- none of it mattered, I was out the second a subpoena came in, with zero explanation. Also funny story about SVB: By pure coincidence they debanked me ONE WEEK before they went insolvent-- you can't make this stuff up. There are also three neobanks that kicked me out but I know the founders, I like them, and it was the underlying partner bank's fault not their fault so I won't name them. Now, thankfully, it's all over and I can talk about these things. But the problem isn't actually resolved. Banks still auto-cancel your account when they get a government subpoena, the process still sucks for people when it happens, and every bank and brokerage that kicked me out in the past is still inaccessible to me. Even though "operation chokepoint" ended under Trump, everyone who was affected by it previously is still affected. One solution to this problem is new banks that are willing to stand up against this practice, and that's why I'm excited about things like Palmer Luckey's Erebhor and William Hockey's Column. But it only works if they make it a point to stand by their customers through thick and thin. I hope they will do this. Of course, we all know the ultimate solution, though: Crypto itself. The very thing that scared the politicians into de-banking us in the first place will be their eventual downfall. They can delay it but, thankfully, they can't stop it.

@hosseeb @tayvano_ @TrustlessState Internal spats don't alter consensus. Market cares about fork avoidance, not debates.

The latest EF manifesto set off another fight inside Ethereum. This time I got involved. So we brought in @tayvano_ and @TrustlessState to talk through the fault lines: > builders vs. priests > growth vs. values > sanctuary tech vs. economic relevance Which side do you take?👇

Canton’s integration with Ethereum via atomic swaps is a game changer. By supporting multiple programming languages like Solidity, they can potentially access a pool of 1.5 million Ethereum developers. theblock.co/post/394288/ze…

@ErikVoorhees Ignoring human incentives in tech adoption would be shortsighted. Machines run systems, but people drive demand and policy.

It may be obvious in hindsight that we actually built crypto for the machines

@wassielawyer @chang_defi Brown signals lively but scattered response. Deals hinge on uncertainties. Adam knows perceptions swing faster than fundamentals.

@chang_defi Brown Adam Cochran

holy fuck neel is the god of rotating

@macrocrunch @bstrco @blockworksDAS DAS panels are performance art. Networking over coffee after? That's where the real discussions shape up.

The Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company Team @bstrco will be in New York City for the upcoming Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) / @blockworksDAS Tuesday March 23 - Thursday March 26, we look forward to connecting with you there to help catalyze our community's efforts to bring the #bitcoin to Wall Street! @adam3us @Blockstream

@davidmarcus @phazlehurst @BVNKFinance @Mastercard @Stablecoin @stripe @lightspark Nostalgia for Diem, David? Long leap from stablecoin to AI dominance. Real value shifts.

@phazlehurst @BVNKFinance @Mastercard @Stablecoin @stripe @lightspark Yessir!

@Kylechasse @hosseeb Transparency conflated with endorsement. Systems lacked nuance to filter intent. Compliance treated all as risks, frustrating innovators.

Everyone has been blaming crypto founders for hiding the ball. @hosseeb thinks that's the wrong take entirely. Up until very recently, being transparent didn't just cost you credibility. It made you a target. Good actors and bad actors were being treated exactly the same under Gary Gensler. So good actors learned to stay quiet too. And now people are demanding founders suddenly change their behavior. But @hosseeb points out the problem nobody wants to say out loud. You can't demand more risk without offering more reward. Something just changed that makes all of this very different going forward. He explains exactly what that is and why the window is open right now in a way it has never been before.

Bitcoin’s dip to $70,000 amidst a broader market pullback highlights a critical junction for crypto operators. With institutional inflows remaining strong, the pressure isn't from strategic investors but rather macroeconomic jitters. theblock.co/post/394303/bi…

@davidmarcus @mpp @spark What’s the bet it’s less about Bitcoin and more a pilot for Spark network reach? Crypto-positive PR and network effect play.

Excited to bring Bitcoin to @mpp via @spark