⚔️ June gloom hit the crypto markets — and we’re here to cover it ⚔️

Crypto companies are falling like dominoes — but that makes our coverage just that more important.

Pictured: Is your summer off to a similar start? Photo by Sarah Kilian on Unsplash

Fourth of July is already over, and with the end of June comes the end to what feels like the first round of the biggest crypto conference circuit since COVID hit — we have several pieces in our top journalism hits of the month about the best (and the worst) parties alone.

Last month also saw what seems like more companies and protocols fall than ever before, so don’t be surprised if our top journalism picks on a certain company’s crash are already last week’s news by the time this newsletter comes out — it’s honestly hard to stay up-to-date on the solvency of these crypto firms in this climate 🤷‍♀️

Before we dive in, we also wanted to say thank you to all of the ACJR members that came to our ACJR x Consensus welcome party in Austin. We had some laughs, some great tacos, some silly awards — and even a real life “hack” of the toy Bitcoins that we had purchased for award winners.

Featured at the Consensus ACJR meet-up, Mitchell Moos, ACJR co-treasurer, with our BTC before the hack

We also had two more in-person events in NYC this month (three in one month!) — an ACJR dinner, and our ACJR x CMC cocktail hour(s) in New York during NFT.NYC. Attached is a photo of our smiling faces. Bonus points if you comment on this newsletter and can name every face in this blue light.

Don’t forget to always check out Twitter, Telegram, and Discord server to learn more about the ACJR, our events and how you can become a member.

We need YOU!

Got a lot of opinions, but nowhere to put them? Reach out to Molly Jane or Anthony on Telegram if you’re ready to share them with the ACJR newsletter audience in an op-ed.

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Top Crypto Journalism in June

Crypto Hedge Fund Three Arrows Capital Considers Asset Sales, Bailout, by Serena Ng, Wall Street Journal

• This piece deserves a mention, among all of the other coverage of Three Arrows Capital’s collapse, because the author got that important interview — a conversation with the co-founders of 3AC themselves, at a time when they were definitely staying away from the press.

Inside a Corporate Culture War Stoked by a Crypto C.E.O. by Ryan Mac and David Yaffe-Bellany, NYT

• This article puts Kraken’s culture on blast — in a world where being libertarian is common among some of the older generation crypto crowd, the piece delves into what that actually means in action in company culture in 2022. The article paints a relatively negative portrait of Kraken CEO Jesse Powell and his not-so-politically-correct behavior with his staff.

A Trip to the Garyvee Convention, Where Everyone Is Part of Crypto’s 1 Percent by Mia Sato, The Verge

• One of the several great pieces this month on the strange parties popping up alongside the conference circuit, this piece details who is in the crowd at VeeCon 2022 — a “superconference” with Miguel as a headliner, hosted by entrepreneur and NFT collection creator Gary Vaynerchuck. As the author writes, the scene at the conference is an odd one full of fan worship — “The audience, there in theory for a weekend of panels and talks about crypto, NFTs, and business, was instead going wild at the emergence of a nondescript middle-aged man wearing a flat brim hat, beige hoodie, jeans, and sneakers.”

MetaMask, Phantom and Other Browser Wallets Patch Security Vulnerability by Sam Kessler, Coindesk

• This piece takes what is a pretty technical concept — a security vulnerability with a narrow attack vector — and covers it in a way that makes the average crypto reader understand what happened, what was prevented, and what that means for them in a simple way.

Crypto Lender Celsius Pauses Withdrawals Due to ‘Extreme Market Conditions’ by Ryan Browne, CNBC

• Since CNBC is not a crypto-specific publication, describing the ongoing collapse of crypto lender Celsius needs to be done in a way that the general public can understand. This piece does just that, introducing the reader to crypto lending, avoiding conflating it with DeFi as a whole, and bringing in plenty of outside sources to round out the piece.

A Billion-Dollar Crypto Gaming Startup Promised Riches and Delivered Disaster by Joshua Brustein, Bloomberg

• With the play-to-earn fervor waning, this Bloomberg piece does a great job detailing what has gone wrong with Axie Infinity, and how it has affected some of its most devoted players.

Tether Cedes Territory to Rival Stablecoins as Crypto Investors Diversify by Vicky Ge Huang, Wall Street Journal

• After the Terra/Luna stablecoin collapse this year, the WSJ piece dives into the other types of stablecoins in the market besides market leader Tether. As stablecoins can be a relatively foreign concept for the average WSJ reader, the piece does a good job of bridging traditional financial understanding with crypto.

Even Giants Started Out Small: Cooperation and the Early Days of Bitcoin by David Z. Morris, Coindesk

• This Coindesk opinion piece goes back to the very first years of Bitcoin, a welcome relief to read in a sea of articles about the current crypto market collapse. David explores a recent paper that found Bitcoin’s early miners were more centralized that first thought, refuting or defending their findings along the way.

Edward Snowden Says Use crypto, Don’t Invest in It: ‘Bitcoin Is What I Used to Pay for the Servers Pseudonymously’ by Jamie Crawley and Coindesk, Fortune

• This article on Snowden’s talk at the Consensus crypto conference in early June does a great job of explaining Snowden’s views on Bitcoin and privacy coins. However, the journalists did miss one key element: when quoting Snowden on his thoughts about the current war in Ukraine, they neglected to mention that his evidence for his current anti-war sentiment was screensharing a series of tweets about Ukraine…from 2016. Same countries, wrong war.

Bitcoin in Zimbabwe: Importing Cars and Sending Money to Family by Joseph Hall, Cointelegraph

• This article does a good job of tracing one Zimbawean’s experience with Bitcoin and how he uses the currency in his daily life — to import cars. Instead of an overview of how crypto can bank the unbanked, this piece really explains just how Bitcoin can make a difference in the financial life of one specific person.

‘The Last Great Party’: With Crypto Winter Coming, NFT Lovers Try to Stave Off Reality by Margaux MacColl, The Information

• Another crypto party piece, this one goes into the overall party life associated with NFT.NYC — and the irony of how NYC’s largest NFT conference was juxtaposed with a pretty big market crash.

A Tale of Two NFT Parties: Doodles vs. Goblintown by Daniel Roberts, Decrypt

• Our last crypto party piece, Decrypt’s Dan Roberts details his own experience at some of the NFT-holder exclusive parties in NYC and how they can be so, so different — for example, one party was centered around a corporate presentation, while the other had a real tattoo station. 

Do Kwon’s Crypto Empire Fell in a $40 Billion Crash. He’s Got a New Coin for You by Alexander Osipovich and Jiyoung Sohn, Wall Street Journal

• While there are tons of articles on Terra’s crash and Do Kwon’s role in the crypto industry, this is a good one to get a good picture of where Do Kwon started, what his crypto vision was, and why it failed so dang badly.  

And now — on to some research!

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Top Crypto Research in June

Galaxy Digital Research: A Breakdown of Ethereum Supply Distribution Since Genesis by Christine Kim, Galaxy Digital Research

• For those interested in Ethereum, this report breaks down how exactly Ethereum’s supply is distributed and how that will be affected in the transition from PoW to PoS.

Cryptocurrency in the Shadow of the Infrastructure Act: An Update by Nicholas Anthony, CATO Institute

• If you didn’t quite understand the importance of the passing of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, this research explains how it still affects those holding crypto.

Where to Use a Blockchain in Non-Financial Applications? by Vitalik Buterin

• Vitalik lists here all of the ways that blockchain can be used beyond financial technology, trying to answer his own question: “It's worth zooming out and asking a broader question: where does it make sense, in general, to use a blockchain in non-financial applications?”

Are Blockchains Decentralized? By Trail of Bits

• This report tries to answer a question that most people think already has an obvious answer.

And for those interested in DAOs, some general research turned into a resource for comparing DAO structures across the world, created by Paradigm.

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Top Crypto Unhinged Tweet from June

One of the top Twitter accounts is @NYT_first_said, where you can see in real-time whenever the New York Times uses a brand new word (for them) in print for the first time.

This month, it was “crytpo.”

Each month brings us even more good crypto journalism, regardless of the market conditions. Journalism never sleeps — remember to find us on Telegram, Twitter, and Discord to stay up-to-date.

Subscribe here! It’s a bear market, and this newsletter is guaranteed to cheer ya up! 😉