Crypto Twitter Roundup Part 2: EOS, 51% threats, security tokens, and ASICs

The Ethereum team in Japan during cherry blossom season with the original DOGE shiba. Photo credit: @mi_ayako

A lot has happened since the first Crypto Twitter Roundup. The bull market turned into a bear market, regulatory clarity is slowly developing, lightning network mainnet has launched, Richard Heart cracked, infrastructure continues to get better (Coinbase, Circle, Abra, Bitpay-Kingdom Trust, Robinhood, Square Cash, Binance in Malta), and ICO’s are still stealing investors money. I have selected a few topics that peaked my interest to keep this roundup concise. Feel free to send me suggestions for future topics by tweeting me @blockchainjoy.

Topics covered in CT Roundup Part 2: Security tokens, EOS, 51% attacks, ASICs, and the comedy.

Note: Some of these embedded tweets are only replies to parent tweets. Medium doesn’t display the parents tweets. For full context, click through the tweets for the full thread.

Security Tokens

Security tokens are a thing and they are almost here. Security tokens differ from utility tokens in that they do not serve a purpose on the network, but rather represent ownership in a company, similar to traditional equities. To understand security tokens further: The Official Guide To Tokenized Securities by @APompliano, and Security Token Thesis by @sbmckeon.

Coinbase announces they are on track to become a US-regulated blockchain securities exchange:

@APompliano has been preaching the importance of security tokens and tweeted this thread after the recent Coinbase news. Click through for the full thread.

The other side of this discussion is whether existing coins and tokens are classified as unregistered securities. Jay Clayton, SEC chair, stated that Bitcoin is not a security but that all ICO’s are considered securities. As Tone points out below, this raises questions about XRP being a security as well. As the warnings from regulators increase, so does the ICO funding rate. The running total for 2018 ($9.8 billion USD) is already higher than the 2017 totals ($3.8 billion USD). Without regulatory clarity, this has become a disaster in the making. A lot of people, mostly retail investors, will be rekt when the clarity does arrive.

EOS

The EOS mainnet has launched on June 10th, 2018 with mixed opinions. EOS has been a easy target due to its centralized nature and the $4 billion USD it has raised since the June 2017 ICO. $4 Billion USD is not a typo, it equates to 7% of the ETH supply. Some notable EOS opinions:

@Ercwl takes an initial look on the 21 server quorum. Click through to read the complete thread to see his conclusion (not good).

The tweet above from Kyle Samani (Multicoin Capital) is hilarious in many different ways. The best response I’ve seen to it:

51% Attacks

If 2017 was the year of ICOs, 2018 will be the year of 51% attacks. Crypto51.app displays the cost of a 51% attack on a PoW chain. Keep in mind, the data on Crypto51.app is very high level and should be used as a rough estimate (for example, the cost to obtain the hardware is not included). A few of the coins that were attacked recently include ZenCash, Verge, Bitcoin Gold, and Monacoin. These attacks will continue to rise as more forks and useless blockchains emerge. Retail investors looking to find get-rich opportunities in small-cap coins will have to will pay close attention to these attacks because they are the primary targets. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

Thoughts on recent and future potential attacks:

Not a bad idea from @_Kevin_Pham.

Jihan, billionaire, responds to Jack Liao’s accusation of purporting a 51% attack on the Bitcoin Gold network:

ASICS

The recent Monero fork away from ASICs has relaunched a discussion of ASICs and their role in cryptocurrency mining. @DavidVorick published a phenomenal article on the state of cryptocurrency mining based off of Sia’s experience in manufacturing ASICs. This is a must read for anyone in the space.

@fluffypony reiterates the plan for Monero in the long run is not to be ASIC resistant. In the short term, it removes ASICs off the network which dropped the hashrate considerably.

Comedy

Too many @NeerajKA tweets to pick from.

Ronnie Moas losing his shit over TA. By the way, Ronnie buys BTC on Coinbase instead of GDAX, why?

The @Bitcoin twitter account (does not represent Bitcoin) repeatably making itself look stupid.

Why don’t more people understand this?

Bitcoin Cash devs turning on each other. But in fairness to Peter, everyone has been turning on Craig Wright in 2018. Except this guy.

Nouriel talks, but does not back it up. Vivek Wadha is even worse. Click through for the thread.

Truth. Stay away from anything Rhett touches.

Ran (CNBC) reminds me of a little kid running through Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Replace the candy with ICOs. Click through for the thread.

Looking forward to TwoBitIdiot and Messari having their own show. To Ran’s credit, he does bring on some legitimate guests who err on the side of caution instead of hype. But those are 10% of his guests.

When a nontechnical Bitcoin maximalist has a hot take. Click through for the thread.

lol, love Jimmy Song Definitely click through for the thread.

When people ask if the bottom is in, show them this tweet from Meltem Demirors

I have to give it to the team at Multicoin cap. They consistently shit on Bitcoin but are on the record with it. I don’t mind this type of shilling.

Neeraj is slowing down mainstream adoption. This thread is great, I hope Tai bought a lot of MoneroV. Click through for Tai’s rant.

@Nic_carter on Consensus 2018.

VitalikButerin live tweets the Deconomy conference. This was actually great, with some fun comments in between.

Loops is nuts, keep shorting LTC. Click through for parent tweet from Vitalik regarding CSW. Vitalik vs CSW at a convention was fun.

That concludes part 2. Stay tuned for the next CT roundup.

Follow me at @blockchainjoy