WhiteboardCrypto Newsletter - Nov 16

Welcome back to this week's edition of our WhiteboardCrypto Newsletter!

Bitcoin up only?

No one needs to be told that bitcoin has hit all time highs this week. It has since corrected down from the ATH of $93477.11 on Nov. 13 (according to CoinGecko). The total crypto marketcap also cleared $3 trillion for the first time. Net inflows into the Ethereum ETF also were positive for the first time yet. Tons of speculation about the future regulations in the US and monetary policy drove this. It’s important to remember that we don’t know the future, so if you have made a plan for investment, try to stick to it.

T

Polymarket CEO raided

Shayne Coplan, the CEO of the largest crypto prediction btting market Polymarket, had his house raided by the FBI. The agency seized his phone and laptop, but so far he is not charged and neither the FBI nor his attorneys have commented on their motivations for the raid, though he is under investigation for allowing US users to access the market, which would go against US gambling regulations.

Learn more here.

Drake proposes Ethereum upgrade

Justin Drake, a prominent Ethereum researcher, unveiled a plan at the DevCon conference to reimagine Ethereum’s roadmap in order to bring a bunch of the small upgrades they have planned into one big package. Namely, he wants to replace the Beacon chain with what he’s calling the Beam chain. Ethereum’s Beacon Chain coordinates the network's proof-of-stake system by managing validators, organizing block proposals, and ensuring consensus across the blockchain. Replacing it would mean they could update the cryptography, lower the amount of ETH needed to be a validator, and generally improve block production times and rewards, among other things. These changes are already part of the roadmap, but Drake suggests that doing them all together would be more efficient and quicker, even though the proposed launch date would be 5 years out. The Ethereum researchers will need to come to an agreement about whether this is a good plan or not.

Learn more here.

Details for early dev access on Unichain leaked

When blockchains are being built, they start with testnets where developers can play around, stress-test the system, and generally make sure it works before making it public. If the details of how to join the testnet are leaked to the public, that means that anyone can join it—usually it is invite-only. Unichain’s testnet details were leaked and users started pouring into the system to create early memecoins etc., but the access wasn’t intended and so the team shut it down. Now, some users are not sure how (or if) they can remove their funds and the team is being criticized for how they approached this. Testnet details are often leaked—this is certainly not the first time—and each team will react differently. So, always be careful about jumping into a new ecosystem!

Learn more here.

Phantom iOS wallet update fears

The popular Phantom iOS wallet had an update that logged some users out of the wallet app. If they didn’t back up their seed phrase when they first created the wallet, they were unable to log back in and access their funds. The team has released a patch since that will prevent the automatic logout with the updates, but also urged people to back up their phrases. Every wallet will prompt you to save your phrase when you create one, and if you don’t save it, there is no way to recover your account. ALWAYS keep your seed phrase somewhere secure and offline so that only you can access your funds, and you always have the ability to.

Learn more here.

Thanks for reading and I hope you learned something!

- Theodore