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Shock: Bitcoin Is This Decentralized

Unless something crazy happens, the crypto market should eek out its second straight week of gains. Tiny, little, puny gains, but gains nonetheless.

It’s been quite a week, but most of the attention was on disgraced former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. But that didn’t stop the market from making some moves. 

In today’s Litepaper, we’ll look at just how decentralized Bitcoin is, Apple’s ($APPL) attack on Coinbase ($COIN), and updates to the Top 10 Staking rewards and FTX mega thread.

Broadly, the altcoin market has been doing very well, with many seeing double-digit percentage gains for the week. 

Before we dive in, here’s how the market looked at the end of the trading day:

Uniswap (UNI)
$6.43
9.08%
Polkadot (DOT)  $5.62 4.64%
Avalanche (AVAX) $13.39 3.65%
Monero (XMR)
$145.79
1.67%
Solana (SOL)
$13.71
1.65%
Cosmos (ATOM) $10.32 1.44%
Cardano (ADA) $0.32 1.41%
Ethereum (ETH) $1,288 1.29%
Shiba Inu (SHIB) $0.00000926 1.06%
Polygon (MATIC)
$0.93
0.88%
Altcoin Market Cap
$486 Billion
0.42%
Total Market Cap $813 Billion 0.31%

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Apple Sours Coinbase Featured Image

Apple ($APPL) has made some enemies in 2022. If you remember, in October, Apple banned Spotify ($SPOT) not once, not twice, but three times.

On Monday (November 28, 2022), Elon Musk Tweeted this:

Musk’s Tweet responded to rumors that Apple was considering removing Twitter from their app store.

However, a couple of days later (November 30, 2022), Apple CEO Tim Cook and Elon Musk had a person-to-person meeting, where Cook informed Musk that Apple had never considered removing Twitter.

We can add another big company to the list of entities Apple has recently upset: Coinbase ($COIN).

Why? Apple wants 30% of the gas fees paid when users transfer NFTs over Coinbase’s iOS wallet.

Coinbase added some fightin’ words accusing Apple of putting profit above consumers and innovation:

Not only that, but Coinbase explained that the blockchain system used to transfer NFTs is not compatible with Apple’s In-App Purchase system.

We’ll update you if there’s any change to this story. 🍎


How Decentralized Is Bitcoin? Featured Image

Curious about how much Bitcoin ($BTC.X) exists and who it’s owned by? We may know some identities tied to BTC addresses, but most are unknown.

But we can track how much exists and how much is in a wallet. 

There is only 21 million Bitcoin that will ever exist. 19.22 million have already been mined. 

15.85 million Bitcoin are in wallets with ten or more Bitcoin.

The top 1% of Bitcoin addresses hold 17.23 million BTC – 89% of the total mined supply. 

Messari

The top 10% of Bitcoin addresses hold 18.96 million BTC – 98.6% of the total mined supply.

Messari

152,794 wallets have ten or more BTC.

Only 113 wallets have greater than 10,000 BTC.

Messari

Probably not the decentralization Satoshi was looking for.


The table below is the current (December 2, 2022) staking yield rates of the top ten cryptocurrencies by their market cap. Not all cryptocurrencies have a staking mechanism on their networks, so, for example, you don’t see Bitcoin ($BTC.X) listed. 

Staked % is what percent of the total supply of that cryptocurrency is currently used to earn staking rewards. Sometimes called ‘Locked Up.’

The Lock-Up Period is how long crypto must stay staked before you can withdraw it and/or any rewards earned. 

Nominal Yields are the rewards listed, whereas Real Yield is the expected return when factoring in other costs, factors, or changes like inflation rates (not listed). 

It should also be noted that calculations and factors for Real Yields can vary substantially from one week to the next. Additionally, the Nominal Yield may have an expected range but is not guaranteed. For example, Polkadot’s ($DOT.X) Nominal Yield is advertised/listed between 8% to 14%. 

Another factor to consider is that the rewards are not in US Dollars but in token/crypto your stake. Staking Cardano ($ADA.X) rewards you in ADA and so forth. 

This table is updated weekly. 

Crypto Staked % Lock-Up Period Nominal Yield %  Real Yield %
Ethereum (ETH) 13.5%  (+0.1) 12+ months 7.3% (+0.6) 6.3% (+0.5)
Cardano (ADA) 71% None 3.8% 1.7%
Solana (SOL)
77%
2 Days
7.2%
1.6%
Polygon (MATIC)
34% (+0.7)
9 to 10 Days
5.1% (-0.1)
3.4% (-0.1)
Polkadot (DOT) 45.9% (-3.1) 28 Days 15.5% (+0.4) 7.8% (+0.6)
Tron (TRX)
46% 
N/A
4.2% 
2.2% 
Cosmos (ATOM)
62.2% (+0.2)
21 Days
21.24% (+0.2)
6.9%
Near (NEAR)
47.9% (+1)
36 hours
10.2% (-0.2)
5.1% (-0.1)
Flow (FLOW)
50% (-0.2)
7 Days 10% (+0.1) 4.8% (+0.1)
Elrond (EGLD)
59.2% (-0.1%)
N/A
8.9%
3.4%

Source: staked.us/yields

Not a lot of big changes this week, except for Polkadot ($DOT.X). Polkadot’s drop in total stake could likely be due to stakers who were worried about the state of the market in late October to early November. 

Polkadot has a lock-up period of 28 days, so it wouldn’t be a big surprise to see this number continue to drop over the next couple of weeks. 


The FTX News Update Megathread (Updated – December 2, 2022) Featured Image

All The Big News – December 2, 2022

Accusation That FTX Misused Customer Funds Presents a ‘Prison’ Problem, Says Crypto Legal Expert Jeremy Hogan From The Daily Hodl

U.S. Trustee asks bankruptcy court to appoint FTX trustee From The Block

FTX Japan drafts plan to return client funds From Cointelegraph

Sam Bankman-Fried’s still sorry, but now he says his memory isn’t great From The Block

Continue Reading


Bullets

Bullets From The Day:

👨‍⚖️ If you’re looking for justice from bad actors in the crypto space, then here’s a story you might like. During the height of the ICO drama (late 2017 into early 2018), there was a massive uptick in scams and frauds. One of the biggest in the U.S. was the SIM Swapping thefts that resulted in roughly $20 million in crypto stolen. Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice’s South District of New York announced an 18-month sentence to Nicholas Truglia for stealing $20 million in crypto during his SIM attacks. Read the press release from the DOJ here.

📻 The most popular podcast in the world (according to a bunch of experts and Google searches), The Joe Rogan Experience, had comedian Kurt Metzger on his show. A YouTube clip of Rogan and Metzger talking about FTX’s collapse has nearly 2 million views. In the recording, they go through past public comments and Tweets from Caroline Ellison (Alameda CEO) and Sam Bankfman-Fried, focusing a lot on the use of drugs. Metzger and Rogan also voiced their irritation with the “puff pieces” posted by the media. You can watch the YouTube clip here.

🏛️ James K. Filan, a defense lawyer, former federal prosecutor, and popular expert with the SEC vs. XRP ($XRP.X) case, released a short paper discussing what he believes the presiding judge will do. Filan believes that Judge Torres will act as she did in the past with a prior Goldman Sachs case. Filan wrote, “I don’t think we should expect a separate ruling on the sealing of the expert materials, the Hinman documents or other material relied on by the parties. I believe that she will decide everything together (as she did with the Goldman Sachs case), and it won’t be until she rules on the motions for summary judgment, and it will be in one big written ruling.”  Click here to read the full paper. 


Credits & Feedback

Today’s Litepaper was written by Jon Morgan. Let him know how he did: