Today’s Litepaper is going to focus on the big and confusing world of staking.
Until inflation gets under control – remember when it was just transitory? – the look for yield and income generation may grow. Traditional yield-generating instruments like BDCs, REITs, Bonds, etc. can have attractive returns in an environment where interest rates are rising, but the crypto space has been a sort of ‘secret’ income generator for over five years.
But it isn’t without its risks – a lot of risks. And many a new participant in the trading, investing, and cryptocurrency space has fallen victim to the same scams and villainy that’s existed in financial markets since the dawn of time.
Speaking of villainy, Interpol issued a Red Notice for Do ‘Con’ Kwon – we’ll talk about that a little today as well.
First, here’s how the market looked at the end of the trading day:
| Cardano (ADA) |
$0.45
|
0.01% |
| Binance Coin (BNB) |
$2775.12
|
0.33% |
| Bitcoin (BTC) | $19,177 | 1.93% |
| Dogecoin (DOGE) |
$0.061
|
0.16% |
| Ethereum (ETH) |
$1,331
|
2.83% |
| Polkadot (DOT) | $6.53 | 5.32% |
| Solana (SOL) |
$33.27
|
4.03% |
| XRP (XRP) |
$0.47
|
-3.48% |
| Altcoin Market Cap |
$533 Billion
|
1.32% |
| Total Market Cap |
$900 Billion
|
1.68% |
Crypto
Crypto 101: What Is Staking?
1. Introduction to Staking
Staking, in essence, is the act of committing your crypto assets (your stake) to support a blockchain’s transaction validation or security, earning rewards in return. Nonetheless, these rewards are often viewed as a type of interest generation by certain jurisdictions, potentially triggering regulatory scrutiny.
Do ‘Con’ Kwon and Terra’s Luna will go down in cryptocurrency history as another Mt. Gox, Bitconnect, and OneCoin story. Everybody and their dog and cat got into Luna. Kwon was one of Forbes’ 30 Under 30, and even the CEO of Galaxy Digital, Mike Novogratz, got a hugenormous tattoo of a wolf howling to Luna.
But then the house of cards fell. Kwon left South Korea for Singapore while a handful of Terra executives were stuck in South Korea and banned from leaving. Then, on September 14, 2022, South Korea issued a warrant for Kwon’s arrest – Singapore said they’d help.
But Kwon wasn’t in Singapore anymore. No one knows for sure where he is. But it might be a little harder for him to run now.
Late Sunday night, Interpol issued a Red Notice for Kwon. What is a Red Notice, exactly? According to Interpol:
A Red Notice is a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action.
It contains two main types of information:
- Information to identify the wanted person, such as their name, date of birth, nationality, hair and eye colour, photographs and fingerprints if available.
- Information related to the crime they are wanted for, which can typically be murder, rape, child abuse or armed robbery.
Red Notices are published by INTERPOL at the request of a member country, and must comply with INTERPOL’s Constitution and Rules. A Red Notice is not an international arrest warrant.
The places he can run and avoid justice are quickly becoming fewer and fewer.
Update:
When writing this article, Do Kwon Tweeted:
Yeah as i said im making zero effort to hide
I go on walks and malls, no way none of CT hasnt run into me the past couple weeks
— Do Kwon 🌕 (@stablekwon) September 26, 2022
He claims he is not hiding but won’t say where he is.
Bullets
Bullets From The Day:
👑 Terra’s community approved a 1.2% tax on Luna Classic ($LUNC.X) in an attempt to eliminate some of the supply out there. Binance ($BNB.X), in turn, announced that they would burn (basically remove, permanently) the trading fees. Binance assured its customers that the expense is from the exchange, not the customer. Read the announcement here
👹 Not sure if this is weird, creepy, or cool, but Walmart ($WMT) teamed up with Roblox ($RBLX) to create Walmart Land and Walmart’s Universe of Play. According to a Q2 2022 report from Roblox, 1/4th of the 52 million daily users are under 13 years old. Walmart wants to target that age group with marketing in the metaverse. Full story from The Block
👹 The CFTC took an enforcement action against Ooki DAO. The tokenized margin lending platform, bZeroX and its founders settled for offering leveraged and margined trading in digital assets. Ooki DAO was accused of using the same software as bZeroX and was charged for the same violations. Can’t let the SEC have all the fun. Read the CFTCs notice here
Links
Links That Don’t Suck:
😱 California issues cease-and-desist against crypto lender Nexo
🥿 Singapore strives to remain relevant amid regulatory tightening for retail investors
🕶️ Are China’s Banks Too Big to Bail?
🐸Deribit raises funds from existing investors at $400 million valuation: Sources
🐸 Ethereum Only 55% Complete: What Upgrades Are Next After the Merge