Digital Scarcity and Utility
Oh and Bitcoin Halved Today!
Crypto’s Best Narratives
1.) Bitcoin is (digitally) scarce
2.) Ether has (digital) utility
Bitcoin is digitally scarce. In a time when it’s tough to come across factual information, it is reassuring to be able to reference the Bitcoin block explorer for truth. How many other protocols online share that characteristic? According to Bitcoin’s white paper, 21 million Bitcoin will ever be produced. To date, already 18.375 million have already been mined. The supply schedule is hard-coded into the protocol making it impossible to change, although some may try in the future. The distribution is simple, every block (~10 minutes) a miner is rewarded in Bitcoin from the coinbase (not the company Coinbase). At the very beginning this reward was 50 Bitcoin per block. Now almost 12 years later that reward changed for the third time in history to 6.125 Bitcoin per block. Every 210,000 blocks (~4 years), the amount of Bitcoin given per block is cut in half until it reaches its max supply of 21 million. This gives reason to believe Bitcoin can be a macro hedge to global inflation and “QE Infinity”.
Ether on the other hand, the native token and “gas” to the Ethereum Network, has a different value proposition- digital utility. You can think of it like paying for internet but instead of paying for “data” to access the internet from anywhere, you pay “gas” in Ether to access Ethereum from anywhere. As of right now owning and using Ether to pay for transactions is the main purpose of Ether on the Ethereum blockchain. As more applications are built and used on top of Ethereum, the higher the demand for Ether will grow. In the near future, Ether will act as digital working capital in new consensus mechanism (Proof of Stake) providing an interest payment for staking Ether. Ether can also be used as a money. An asset to buy or lend for other digital tokens, collectibles, and even pay for real world items. As Ethereum matures, more use cases for a world computer will evolve and change the current landscape of so many industries.
Market Update (Monday Open)
Bitcoin- $8,850
Ether- $187.50
Gold- $1,705.80
DJI Average- 24,256.45
S&P500- 2,915.46
NASDAQ Composite- 9,054.91
New Developments
Bitcoin halved today! Bitcoin block number 630,000 was mined today by AntPool
Crypto Hedge Funds nearly doubled AUM in 2019 according to a PwC report.
ETH2 coming soon, Phase 0 Beacon Chain expected by Q3 2020
Industry Opinion’s
The Great Monetary Inflation, by Paul Tudor Jones & Lorenzo Giorgianni
Evolution of Bitcoin's Halvings, by Balaji Srinivasan
The First Halving November 28, 2012 An Insider Event en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Halving_d… The Second Halving July 9, 2016 A Community Event coindesk.com/bitcoin-halvin… The Third Halving May 11, 2020 An Industry Event coindesk.com/bitcoin-halvin… The Fourth Halving TBD, 2024 A Global Event?
Python/FinTech Activity
API’s (Application Programming Interface): *Use Jupyter Lab
# import requests and json library
import requests
import json
# Declare `url` variables
prog_joke_url = "https://official-joke-api.appspot.com/jokes/programming/random"
# Execute `GET` request with url
response_data = requests.get(prog_joke_url)
# Store response using `content` attribute
response_content = response_data.content
# Format data as JSON
data = response_data.json()
# Use json.dumps with argument indent=4 to format data
print(json.dumps(data, indent=4))
# Select a programming joke
setup = data[0]['setup']
punchline = data[0]['punchline']
# Print joke and punchline
print(setup)
print(punchline)
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Why do programmers always mix up Halloween and Christmas?
Because Oct 31 == Dec 25
Quick Earn Opportunity
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