Cryptonite October 2021

Shenanigans in the cryptoverse.

and

Oct 30

This is the last weekend of the month so its time for Cryptonite - our monthly roundup of all things crypto - with Tejaswi Nadahalli.

You can follow Tejaswi on twitter @nadahalli and he blogs at tejaswin.com

The ETF

The big news this week was the launch of the long-awaited Bitcoin ETF. Trading under the ticker symbol BITO, the fund, offered by ProShares, lets investors buy into Bitcoin without actually buying it on a crypto exchange.

BITO does not directly hold Bitcoin, but instead trades on Bitcoin futures.

New Bitcoin ETF Grows at Record Speed. Here’s What Investors Should Know

When the SPDR S&P 500 ETF debuted in 1993 it traded about $40 million on its first day. By the end of the trading session BITO had traded about $984 million in volume. CNBC

Ryan Patrick Kirlin 🐎 @RyanPKirlin

Broadly speaking, the entire US economy is built upon launching things the best you can in that moment, then iterating to improve. The ETF industry is no different. Did ya know ETFs were listed on exchanges based upon stock rules? Now you do.

It may not be the perfect Bitcoin ETF fans of crypto expected but its a foot in the door.

Athanasios Psarofagis @tpsarofagis

October CME Bitcoin futures expiration today. Looks like $BITO finished rolling the last of it yesterday. If my math is right, estimated annualized roll cost is about 11%

Now that SEC has given its imprimatur, registered investment advisors (RIAs) with trillions under management can now allocate to “crypto.” Coinbase, AWOC

The casino is open.

Jason Lau @jasonklau

So now we have bitcoin derivatives that are 4 steps away from actual #bitcoin. Spot > futures > futures ETF > options on futures ETF

Katie Greifeld 🎃 @kgreifeld

what's more fun than the Bitcoin futures ETF? options on the Bitcoin futures ETF Bitcoin Bets Can Now Be Pumped Up as ETF Options Start Trading https://t.co/74DYv5MVPO via @markets @crypto w/ @VildanaHajric

Shiba Inu

Degens pumped $SHIB to the moon and one of them became a multi-billionaire.

Morning Brew ☕️ @MorningBrew

This wallet bought roughly $8,000 of $SHIB last August. It's now worth $5.7 billion. From $8,000 to $5.7 billion in roughly 400 days. We may actually be looking at the greatest individual trade of all time.

And Indians joined in.

WazirX claims that over 7.3 million users have registered on the platform and it has clocked over $21.8 billion in trading volume in 2021 till date. Tier-II and Tier-III cities have driven almost 55% of total user signups. LiveMint

Suprita Anupam @karnanupam

Last 24 hr volume WazirX: $460 Mn CoinDCX: $151 Mn Zebpay: $129 Mn Bitbns: $108 Mn Source: @CoinMarketCap Thanks to #SHIB trxns. The 24 hr volume is indeed higher. According to @WazirXIndia, the 24 hr volume hit $562 Mn, out of which almost 60% i.e. $338 Mn occurred in SHIB.

Somewhere:

Worldcoin

When you think things can’t get any more cringe in the cryptoverse, it does.

Sam Altman @sama

Introducing Worldcoin, a new cryptocurrency that will be distributed fairly to as many people as possible. Details about how it works: worldcoin.org

Radical Markets

A few years ago, I was very bullish on the promise of crypto creating a better world. The book Radical Markets – Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society (Amazon; review) had laid out some fascinating ways in which this could come about. But now, I look at it as yet another speculative asset.

Odds & Ends

On setting closing prices

Killing time: The closing auction is eating the trading day

Cboe approval shakes up stock market’s closing auction

IRCTC

IRCTC-Railways convenience fee kerfuffle

Sandeep Parekh @SandeepParekh

Really bad idea of changing the rules of the game after the game has started - IRCTC. Bad corporate governance, bad economics and bad for all divestment. Thread @narendramodi sir pl reconsider.

Slot Machines

In the early aughts, the tech writer Julian Dibbell devised the concept of ludocapitalism, a term inspired by watching World of Warcraft players mine gold in the game to making a living in real life. Ludocapitalism was an attempt to explain the growing gamification of society through technology. Dibbell admits the concept’s parameters are vague, but at its most basic it identifies that capitalism can harness the human play drive for better or worse — and that increasingly, games aren’t allegories that say something about our lives; they are our lives. As people move toward more data-driven existences where points are accumulated from health apps and status is accumulated in identifiable quantities on social media, gamification becomes so total that it can sometimes mask whether what we’re doing has any inherent utility outside the game that surrounds it. Verge

Driving Ferraris and Watching Tungsten

Midwest Tungsten Service:

'What is the biggest cube we can make?' We have an answer that creates a bit of a problem. The answer is 14" and 1,784 lbs (809 kg). The problem is, what do with it if we make it. Shipping and receiving can be a problem.
So here's our solution:
An NFT with rights to visit a 14" cube. We will make the 14" cube. This NFT represents a real-world physical cube that will be stored at Midwest Tungsten Service headquarters and owned by the NFT owner. One visit to see/photograph/touch the cube per calendar year will be allowed and scheduled with a Midwest Tungsten Service representative. Unlockable content required for scheduling and proof of ownership required for entry. The cube will be stored in a room of its own that will be locked and only accessible by the NFT owner.
Subsequent owners of the NFT cannot visit the cube in a year in which the cube has already been visited. The cube will not be available to view until 12 weeks after the first sale. Burning the NFT will result in shipment to the most recent owner via freight truck, owner will be responsible for alerting Midwest Tungsten Service of the intention to burn and transport after freight drop-off.

Minimum bid on opensea is 47.74 ETH ($208,390.35)

Previously: Cryptonite September 2021