Lucas Nuzzi, head of R&D at CoinMetrics, and Larry Cermak, VP of research at The Block, discuss the current state of the crypto market, including the potential for contagion effects and the challenges faced by VC companies. They also delve into the mining industry and the issues surrounding MEV and Ethereum. The conversation also touches on stablecoins, DeFi activity and NFT trading, and the potential dangers of Binance’s dominance in the industry.

Show highlights:

  • how the collapse in 2022 of FTX and other behemoths will affect the industry in 2023
  • why there’s been a lot of forced selling in the markets recently
  • why the industry could still be headed to more contagion effects
  • the characteristics of the current bear market, how it differs from previous ones, and the role of the macroeconomic environment
  • why it’s very hard to predict how prices will behave in 2023
  • why VC firms will have to focus on long-term projects rather than speculation
  • what’s going to happen in the Bitcoin mining industry in 2023 considering the current tough situation
  • why Lucas thinks that Bitcoin “drastically overpays for security”
  • why MEV is a concerning issue and how it represents a single point of failure for Ethereum
  • how the narrative of alternative layer 1s has changed and why the focus will shift to layer 2s
  • whether there is a need to develop better blockchain monitoring tools
  • why stablecoin issuers have a very good business model given the interest rate environment
  • what are the problems of stablecoins and how they will be regulated
  • why DeFi activity and NFT trading were down so heavily in 2022 and whether the downtrend will change 
  • how Binance’s dominance is “terrifying” and whether it could hurt the industry
  • Lucas’ concerns about the lack of transparency around Binance’s BNB token

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Links

Guests:

Lucas :

Larry:

The year in crypto:

FTX

Previous coverage of Unchained on Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX:

NFTs:

MEV

BTC Mining:

Contagion

 

Read the episode transcript here