CBDCs on Ethereum?

Also: Crypto eats jobs, Overstock wants out, VC and hedge funds buy in |

What you need to know today in crypto and beyond  June 2, 2021 Sponsored By:     Welcome to The Node.   If you were forwarded this newsletter and would like to receive it, sign up here.   Questions? Feedback? We'd love to hear from you! Simply reply to this email.   -Daniel Kuhn Today's must-reads Top Shelf CBDC GOES GLOBAL: The Bank of Thailand has hired German technology company Giesecke+Devrient to develop a CBDC prototype, and plans to release a digital currency on a three- to five-year timeline. Meanwhile, the former head of the digital currency initiative at the People's Bank of China (PBoC) said CBDCs could one day run on Ethereum. ONLINE SHOPPING? The Overstock-incubated tokenized securities venue tZERO is looking for a private buyer or possibly a SPAC. The move is reportedly to take the alternative trading system (ATS) to the next level and comes as Overstock looks to exit its blockchain-related investments. VENTURES AND HEDGES: Master Ventures launched a $30 million fund for Polkadot-based crypto projects. AU21 Capital started a $21 million fund to invest in projects built on Ethereum layer 2 Polygon. Hedge fund manager Commonwealth Asset Management bought $15 million worth of tokens from Solana-based derivatives platform Hxro.  THE WAY TO KNOWLEDGE: Major DeFi players have launched AladdinDAO, a decentralized asset management marketplace to help new or less-informed investors generate returns through liquidity mining. Led by a former Huobi executive and including the participation of investors including Multicoin Capital and Polychain Capital, the DAO will help identify the "most promising" DeFi projects for investment.  GOLD FOR PENNIES: Institutional investors are exiting bitcoin positions for gold, following a 35% drop in May, according to JPMorgan analysts. Meanwhile, a Goldman Sachs commodities researcher said BTC is more like digital copper: "[Bitcoin and copper] are pro-risk, risk-on assets. They are substitutes for risk-on inflation hedges, not risk-off inflation hedges."  –D.K. A message from Nexo Your digital assets deserve a savings account in their BEST INTEREST. Leading crypto lender Nexo treats you, your crypto and your fiat to industry-best Crypto & Fiat services, featuring:    * Up to 12% interest on digital assets, paid out daily! * Yields available on BTC, ETH, LTC, BCH, XRP, XLM, EOS, TRX, LINK, BNB, PAXG, USDT, USDC, TUSD, PAX, DAI, HUSD, GBP and EUR. * No minimum or maximum limits on funds deposited, offering infinite opportunities to earn. * #ZeroFees on all transactions. * Military-grade wallet security and top-tier insurance on all custodial assets with SOC 2 Type 2 certified crypto custodian BitGo.   Get started at nexo.io A message from CoinDesk CoinDesk's new reward token soft-launched at Consensus 2021, but $DESK lives on. Attendees can still cash in at the $DESK store, or hodl and accumulate. Join the Telegram group for announcements and airdrops. What others are writing... Off-Chain Signals   Israel-Gaza Conflict Spurs Bitcoin Donations to Hamas. "For the Palestinian organization, the virtual currency has the advantage of avoiding traditional banking systems while being anonymous and almost untraceable." (WSJ) A fight over New York's emergent bitcoin mining industry raises questions about retired power plants and the environmental impact of bitcoin. (Decrypt) Pepe the Frog Reclaimed as an NFT by Creator Matt Furie (Decrypt) SEC delays decision on WisdomTree's proposed bitcoin ETF (The Block) According to data analyzed by Protos, just $19.4 million in NFT sales were processed in the past week, down from a peak $102 million traded on a single day in May. –D.K. A message from Masterworks Circle your calendar. Art collectors are projected to make $900 BILLION by 2026. From CEOs to Wall Street scions, everyone's piling on. One exclusive platform is poised to be at the center of it, and they want you to be part of it. Instead of obsessing over the fluctuations in the crypto market, you can secure your wealth in the $1.7 trillion art market. Skip their 25,000-person waitlist with this special Node link.*   *See disclaimer Putting the news in perspective The Takeaway How Do You Know Crypto Is Winning? Look Where the Talent Is Going Crypto really is eating the software that ate the world. This isn't just seen in the amount of capital being deployed in BTC or DeFi, which might have gone elsewhere, but also in the human beings who choose to work in the industry.    Over the last few months, there have been a few notable departures from traditional financial and software giants. Bridgewater, the world's largest hedge fund, lost its chief financial officer to NYDIG. Coinbase hired a top Goldman Sachs lobbyist. FTX hired an executive from Citadel Securities.    Then there are the regulators who have made their home at crypto upstarts. Former acting Comptroller of the Currency Brian Brooks took charge at Binance.US the same day former top U.S. commodities regulator Chris Giancarlo joined BlockFi's five-person board.    These are figures who, as part of their remit, had large swaths of the economy under their supervision and identified the most dynamic and personally rewarding opportunities as being in crypto.    "The internet is a remarkable social and technological phenomenon. It's by no means seen its course. What it's done first to information then to retail and transportation, it's now doing in financial services in a very broad way," Giancarlo said the morning of his announcement, on CoinDesk TV.    These human flows demonstrate the viability of what's being built in crypto. Capital deployment is a big indicator, and there are crypto projects doing big numbers. But that's all a calculated risk, a gamble, a hope for yield in an economy where everything seems to offer returns. Tomorrow Tesla could announce it sold its BTC horde.    Human beings taking jobs in crypto is different. It's stickier. But it also gives a peek into the industry's dynamics. People may be motivated by competitive salaries or startup equity, but they may also have harder-to-define motivations, such as a belief or feeling that crypto is the future.    Employment reports consistently show blockchain skills are in high demand.    "The bitcoin and crypto industry has the highest asymmetry opportunity in any industry, so it is not surprising to see thousands of people moving from legacy businesses to these disruptive upstarts," the influential Anthony Pompliano said over email.    Pomp kicked up a crypto jobs board four months ago to help place the experienced and inexperienced in open crypto roles. He says 50,000 people have already applied for positions, and as many as 20 people have been hired.    Mike Wen recently left Apple to go "all in on crypto." He says he followed a familiar path for millennials: used BTC to buy a fake ID in 2014, invested in "the next wave" in 2017 and started to get curious again about DeFi in 2020. And now he's hooked.    "NFTs were the first use case that both made sense to me as a consumer but also was something I knew I would be passionate about working on," Wen said over email. He's building a community-owned NFT platform, Gallery, and feels empowered by the core ideals of "decentralization, self-sovereignty and permissionless innovation that crypto embodies."   While he doesn't think most of his former colleagues will rush out to join a crypto startup or that decentralized collectives could ever truly compete on the hardware front with monoliths like Apple, Web 3.0 is where the real innovation is taking place.    "This relates to me so deeply because in my career I've always been grinding, just waiting for the 'right opportunity.' However, in crypto the opportunity is out there, you just have to go out and grab it," Wen said.    –D.K. Sponsored Content   Globalway: Tokenizing the Digital Creative Economy The way the world works has undergone a sea change with the rapid growth of both the sharing and gig economies. The cryptocurrency movement has never been so sprawling, reaching every corner of the planet.   Crypto State by CoinDesk aims to connect with local communities to explore this movement of financial disruption and how it trickles down to every corner of the globe, from DeFi investment opportunities to alternative ways to transact and store wealth.    We're making virtual stops with audiences in Nigeria, the Middle East and Southeast Asia this year. Register for the Crypto State virtual tour. The Chaser... ATTENTION: Scammers have been sending fraudulent emails with links to sites disguised to look like coindesk.com. If you are in doubt about a link, type https://www.coindesk.com directly into your browser; do not copy and paste. Remember, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. The Node   A newsletter from CoinDesk   See Previous Editions Copyright © 2021 CoinDesk, All rights reserved.    250 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10003, USA You can manage your preferences here or unsubscribe from all CoinDesk email.