The Rug Pull Really Tied the Room Together

I’ve been writing about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies since 2013. That means that I’ve seen a number of boom and bust cycles.

It’s starting to feel like we’re entering another crypto winter.

Bitcoin is down 37% since the start of the year. Ethereum is down 44% so far this year. Solana is down 68%.

This week, Andreessen Horowitz published a piece reframing that brutal boom and bust whipsaw as the “The Crypto Price-Innovation Cycle.”

The firm has written about the cycle, “Even though crypto cycles look chaotic, over the long term they’ve generated steady growth of new ideas, code, projects, and startups — the fundamental drivers of software innovation.”

This week on Dead Cat, Tom Dotan and I spoke with someone who is much less optimistic that these crypto cycles are good for the world.

We chatted with Jacob Silverman, a journalist who has published articles about crypto in the Washington Post and the New Republic.

Silverman has become a frequent collaborator with actor Ben McKenzie — aka Ryan from The O.C.

McKenzie, who is working on a book with Silverman, has become a prolific crypto critic. While McKenzie’s fellow celebrities are out hawking crypto currencies and NFT projects, McKenzie has been a necessary voice of caution.

On this week’s episode, we talk with Silverman about the unraveling of Luna and stablecoin TerraUSD. We discuss crypto regulation and try to game out where things are going from here.

Give it a listen.

Read the automated transcript.

Background reading:

* The Pandemic Sparked a Golden Age of Crypto Scams (New Republic)

* Why users are pushing back against the world’s largest crypto exchange (Washington Post)

* Crypto Bro Behind Staples Center Renaming Has Messy Past (Daily Beast)

* Anyone Seen Tether’s Billions? (Bloomberg Businessweek)

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