HOWABUNGA! 👈️ In badger language, this is what we say when we are really… I mean REALLY HAPPY to see someone! So… Howabunga you beautiful crypto thrill-seeker! 🚀

Welcome to Coinqraft, the daily crypto compass for the curios and inquisitive minds!

I am Qrafty 🦡, the crypto honey badger, and I have finished navigating the choppy waves of blockchain babble so you can surf the crypto-currents of news and alpha. Daily expeditions for smart seekers who'd rather conquer coins and knowledge than the snooze button. 🖖  

Today’s Story

Wanna Watch a Crypto Show? Huh?

A crypto reality show? Really? It’s not like you ran out of subjects.. wth Qrafty?

Weeeell… Qrafty’s been very serious lately with all the downers in the market and the happenings of the suited people, so I thought about taking a different approach today.

So today Qrafty is going to discuss something a bit more light, and that is the reality show named “The Next Crypto Gem“. No, Qrafty wasn’t paid to advertise this show.

If you think about it, a reality show is kinda the best way to promote the whole crypto space to other people outside the space. That’s culture, however stupid you might find it. It attracts eyeballs. It gets people to watch and live it, if it’s quality content.

Wdym “quality content”

Well it’s not an action movie. There will be some situational comedy derived naturally from the… quality of the guests. It’s not adventure, since the only adventure will be to discover the depths of their personalities… Thank God it’s not crime… hopefully. Although…

****Qrafty’s usually silent inner voice smacks Qrafty on the head****

It’s not family or religious, either, and I bet it’s not horror, unless someone makes them… I dunno… count their lost Bitcoins in a haunted graveyard! Expect thrills, chills, and blockchain bills, minus holy water! 🧛‍♂️👻📉 ****cue grave pipe organ music with a really cool deep base beat****

Qrafty, that was a bit dark, wasn’t it ?!

Yes, you are right… but that was a really good opportunity for a joke and Qrafty couldn’t miss it!

So people are expecting drama and comedy with some thrill sprinkled on it… lots of that, in many different ways. Talking heads… not so much, they’re on every screen. They’re like the AI content picking up on the internet: it does the job, but it doesn’t get you there… know what Qrafty means? 😎 

Ideally, it should be just like the market: a rollercoaster where laughter mingles with trading tears, emotions ride high into the heavens of bliss and crash down into the abyss of dark emotional pain… through all of that, you accidentally learn a thing or two between jaw-dropping twists.

All snarkiness aside, it’s a good initiative. Crypto has two main problems that haven’t been handled well:

1. Adoption by the more financially conservative oriented… and if they jump in…

2. The user experience is really not encouraging, although it has improved a lot compared to pre 2020.

Also, crypto’s own culture has evolved and has become diversified, as the space became more complex. But essentially it boils down to cult like communities that behave like a hive mind and degen traders who need something to watch between two 100x longs and banging their head on the keyboard while pretending to be in profit on Twitter.

Also they need some drama and juice for Twitter shitposting, so it’s a match made in heaven! If the show is good, traders are the first to spread the word around.

These shows are bringing crypto culture for the masses. Whether you like it or not, it’s going to bring added value to the space and a lot of attention. Whether that will be capitalized by the space as trust and opportunity, there’s also the option of being transformed into repulsion and disapproval.

Qrafty encourages everything that is high quality production and not some random idiots doing stupid dances on a stage thinking that everyone understands their small world, completely unaware that the cringe level for the normal curios person just made a huge green dildo after seeing the dance, to put it in trading terms. That’s one of the times when a big green dildo is not a happy moment.

Plus Qrafty recently learned how to make popcorn! So yaaay for shows!

All of them seem to be on the right track September or later in fall. Oh, you didn’t know that there’s more than one show coming?

Well get this: Dan Harmon, the Emy award winning, co-creator of the famous animated show “Rick and Morty” has already finished the first season of “Krapopolis“, a new animated show about crypto.

Fox will air the first two episodes on the 24th of September. It seems to be so good, that they finished the second season and now they’re working on the third one. All that before they aired a single episode! Someone must like it… a lot!

The series features the voices of Emmy Award-winner Hannah Waddingham (Ted Lasso, Game of Thrones), Richard Ayoade (The IT Crowd), Matt Berry (What We Do in The Shadows), Pam Murphy (Mapleworth Murders) and Duncan Trussell (The Midnight Gospel).

So what, Qrafty? It’s just another entertainment show… It’s not like we don’t have enough already!

True dat! But Qrafty loves crypto with the same intensity that Qrafty hates crypto (just like you, right? admit it!) and whenever I see something that can help the movement get more eyes on it, that loving part comes out and starts preaching!

But that’s not all. There’s a catch to this show: those who want to make a contribution to the show, can buy an NFT called a Krap Chicken. That NFT gives the holder the possibility of voting on the show’s content. So you can literally choose what krap happens in the show. Well… more like contribute to choosing , because it’s more of a pooled choice than individual one. Or… you know… do a 51% attack and hack the thing altogether (if that’s even possible…).

Just joking, Qrafty just wanted to say that it’s pretty interesting to buy a jpg online and decide how the show is going to evolve, isn’t it?

****Qrafty is thinking, slap some choice based outcomes like in Netflix’s Bansdersnatch and a 51% attack with the executives actually holding on to the promise of production based on votes and you get some draaaaamaaaaaaa! The crazy ones will vote for crazy content and the producers must keep to their word. Hi hi!****

That’s a very interesting business model for entertainment and content production teams, leading to interesting possibilities of self monetization away from Hollywood and traditional video gatekeepers like youtube, TikTok, other social media or traditional media ***cough*** corporations ***cough*** platforms that can massively distribute content.

Will web3 harness the creativity and give birth to a new generation of content creators with independent funding, that can spark a new wave of creativity and interaction beyond the rather tedious and dull swiping farms that are the popular apps of today?

🙃 Qrafty hopes that today’s main story brought brave badgery value to you! Now it’s time for a break, you deserve a bit of fun! 😇 👇️ 

A good giggle… priceless. For everything else there’s… laughing hysterically.

Here are the main news of the day in crypto

1. ‘No fucking way’ — Joe Rogan, Post Malone slam US government CBDC

Post Malone was a guest on Tuesday on “The Joe Rogan Experience” and it’s a thing you don’t want to miss. Among many things, at one point the discussion turned to central bank digital currencies (CBDC’s - like a digital dollar not backed in gold or anything) the Joe Rogan didn’t hold anything back. Good for him!

He simply and rapidly tied the CBDC with a social credit system where pretty much all you do is tracked and send into a profiling system which decides if your actions are “good for ze system, comrade”. If so, you good sheep. If not, suddenly you can’t get out of the house because your door won’t open for 12 hours, because you said bad things about ZE SYSTEM. Or you have a limit of 15 bucks on your card for 30 days, because you were not obeying enough and you got drunk and swore at the government online. Qrafty doesn’t like where this is going…

We tend to forget very easily that the point of Bitcoin was to release humans from the chains of government issue money and blockchain was supposed to help those saying “We, The People!” to track government spending very clearly and precisely. And taking back control over the finances of a country means taking back control of the country itself.

There is a huge underlying problem no one is really acting on: there’s is close to no responsibility when it comes to government spending. 0. Nada. Zilch. Squat! There are endless black holes of incompetence, ignorance and damn right evil that suck public funds towards their interests without a keen scrutiny.

Repeat after me: “blockchain is meant to be enforced in the government and public administration in order to independently and transparently track public spending and the usage of public resources!”

Repeat after me again, please: “blockchain is NOT to be weaponized against the people by tracking their every cent on a public/private ledger with private backdoors by a handful of institutions and especially… certain 3 letter agencies”.

We are reaching areas of gaslighting and expansion of control over its population by public institutions on levels that draw very keen similarities to totalitarian regimes. No wonder Joe Rogan got pissed.

Oh, they also talked about the fabulous decision of the Canadian government to freeze the bank accounts for those who protested against it during the “Freedom Convoy“ protest.

So if you think that nasty scenario Qrafty mentioned above couldn’t happen… well a part of it happened in Canada, which is like America's chilled-out sibling who'd rather apologize excessively than stir up drama. 🍁🤫 Well… think again.

2. CPI lower than expected. Don’t get too excited, mkay?

There’s a lot of commotion Fed is basically thinking: “We are on our way, but not yet there hence we must be very cautious and assess our every more according to the strategy we have built in accordance with maintaining a stable market and ensuring that the economical turbulence is behind us and what’s left ahead is mild annoyances which will be dealt with swiftly”.

👆️ That’s a 55 words sentence without a break. Cool way to look like you’re saying important things without actually saying anything at all, huh?

Here’s the reality: CPI rose less than expected, but that doesn’t mean it’s party time. It means that the direction is good, but there’s still a long road ahead until things stabilize. But this is good news.

In a separate report, the US Bureau of Labos Statistics stated that real wages increased 0.3% on the month and were up 1.1% from a year ago. So the CPI rose 3.2% from July last year.

Most of the monthly inflation increase came from shelter costs, which rose 0.4% and were up 7.7% from a year ago.

The problem?

It’s still well above the 2% target that the Fed strives for. Now, you will ask…

Qrafty, why the 2% target? And not higher or lower or minus -2% or 0%?

Well… Qrafty will let Mr. Powell himself answer that question for you, it’s a juicy one, you’re going to love it!

Well, Qrafty must admit that it’s not the smartest badger in town, but as Qrafty understands in his badgery ways, according to Mr. Powell the inflation rate is essentially a form of mass madness to which we all agree on, isn’t it?

Now we will see what happens in September, if the hiking continues or not.

3. Russian central bank starting testing for their CBDC

In the past couple of years, Russia already started developing and started trials with banks for a central bank issued digital currency (CBDC).

Now Russia’s central banks is announcing that they’ll start a pilot for the digital ruble from the 15th of August, with 13 banks and 30 companies spread in 11 cities. The pilot will have 600 customers initially and is projected to expand its utility as a coin to facilitate cross border payments. Someone is thinking crypto somewhere inside the central bank of Russia.

They say they’ll have digital wallets, p2p transfers (person to person/peer to peer), purchases of goods and services using QR codes and automated payments. That’s pretty damn hard to maintain!

If the tests will be successful, the general public is expected to be able to use the digital ruble around 2025, but that will not be mandatory or compelled by the government.

Long story short, Russia is saying about its CBDC: hey people, we finished our CBDC implementation and we’re releasing V1 to a close circle first to make sure everything is smoothed out, but in a couple of years you can get in on the circus and use it yourself.

Oh, also there are 11 countries in the world that currently have CBDC’s issued and a lot more are engaged in developing their own (including China). It seems like the world’s central banks are quite keen on issuing CBDC’s.

4. California bank, SoFi, holds $166M in crypto

In it's Q2 earnings report, the US bank shares that they’re holding a plethora of coins, as if these guys are legit og’s in the space. They got all them coins: Bitcoin, Ether, Sol, ADA(Cardano), ETC(Ethereum Classic). Heck, they even got the doggy $DOGE coin!

Qrafty, you mean 166 million US dollars? One bank?

Yuuuuup! And it’s not even a huge, or big one! It’s true that they began offering crypto services quite early. And they got their banking license in February 2022 (yep, they’ve been a bank officially for 1 year). But before that, they offered crypto related services from 2019.

It’s also interesting to see what happens now, with the FED adding complexity in the relationship between banks and what they regard as novel activities. That’s because the same bank has until 2024 to comply to the regulations, being called out by a Senate committee because there’s no such thing as a crypto bank, kay? So time’s running out for them.

How does a bank offer access to crypto, Qrafty?

The bank doesn’t buy directly, but through its subsidiary they own, named SoFi Digital Assets LLC, that has a money transmitter license (a lot of early exchanges went down and were prosecuted because they didn’t have this license). So they don’t mention exactly how and from where they buy crypto, but mention that after they bought it for you, the hold it in trust with a couple of custodians, one being Coinbase.

So what do they do exactly to get crypto as a bank?

Well, here is what they say 👇️ 

• We engage third parties to provide custodial services for our digital assets offering, which includes holding the cryptographic key information and working to protect the digital assets from loss or theft.

• The third-party custodians hold digital assets as custodial assets in an account in SoFi’s name for the benefit of our members. We maintain the internal recordkeeping of our members’ digital assets, including the amount and type of digital assets owned by each of our members in the custodial accounts.

• We currently utilize two third-party custodians. Therefore, we have concentration risk in the event the custodians are not able to perform in accordance with our agreements.

• As of June 30, 2023, we did not identify any loss events.

To sum it up, their buy crypto with your money and hold it with a custody entity. There are companies that offer this kind of service for your coins because you will get drunk and forget where you put the seed key to your account, ya?

This is more of an institutional service, as it takes a lot of technical headaches away from the bank. Custodians can be exchanges or other entities that can provide this service. They basically guard the coins from the mistakes of humans.

Oh and also the bank keeps records to the owners of the crypto they store with the custodians. Like who has what amount, see?So yeah, that’s how they do it.

5. Ripple Labs v. SEC jury trial is set for spring 2024

What was the problem? Brad Garlinghouse said SEC could wait years to do it!!! Wha happeeen ?!?!?! 😭 SEC waited 2 months and appealed… OMG OMG! 🤢

Okay, relax… tranquillo… The SEC appealed because they want to haunt and get Ripple on every other possible corner. They’re also in a trial, so you could argue that the SEC is trying to shed light on all aspects of Ripple’s activity.

And the SEC is hitting at the Programmatic Sales of XRP by Ripple. Why? Because the previous trial ended with the Federal Judge saying that “only

What’s programmatic sales of XRP by Ripple, precious?

What they sold to anyone else except institutional customers, in which case XRP was regarded to be sold as a security. Yes, the court actually makes the distinction that if the same XRP is being sold to two different entities in different means, there are two legal perspectives.

Also, Ripple states that the programmatic sales account for less than 1% of the global XRP trading volume sold. That sounds nice when you hear it, but what Ripple is trying to say is that they are not swaying the price up or down when they sell XRP. Also, that’s the only area of the trial that they won. And now the SEC is hitting that area too.

Remember, for the sales to institutional investors, the SEC was right: XRP was sold as a security, because the companies that bought it expected it to increase based on Ripple’s efforts.

Hey hey 🙃 Qrafty hopes you are enjoying the experience here and would like to regularly get Qrafty’s letters, can click on the button below. Qrafty is really really grateful to have you here, so thank you!

Qrafty presents to you… the state of crypto!

Best way to find out what the price will do in crypto! 👇️ 

Me: Checks crypto prices in the morning.

Crypto: Ah, a spectator! Let's give them a wild ride before breakfast! 🎢☕️

Me, squinting: 30% of my portfolio is gone.

Sips coffee

Also me: suddenly my vision if going dark and my heart is pounding. Yay! Off to work then!

… Later on in the day, back from work.

Me: Checks crypto prices.

Crypto: Ah, a spectator. Shall we resume?

Me, eyes enlarged: portfolio is 10% up from before the drop this morning.

And this, my friend, is a not really unusual day in the life of a crypto aficionado, especially during a bull run. And you go to bed, not knowing what tomorrow brings. It’s all part of the fun!

Other stories from today worth noting

• Supreme Court says Apple can keep its rules, for now

  Apple was sued by Epic because Apple doesn’t allow them to steer users to other platforms for payment. Apple demands 30% of total transactions.

  Apple were mostly granted credit in 2021 by a district court and Epic’s changes to the Apple’s policy were rejected, but Epic did get a victory: that Apple informs the users that there are other methods of payment, outside of Apple.

  And the judge demanded that Apple implements that because Epic uses a freemium model, where users don’t pay for the game itself, but pay in microtransactions in game for content.

• Coinbase Ethereum L2 launches mainnet

  Already it has seen inflows of capital in the amount of $142 million. They aren’t planning on launching their own token and intend to support the network.

• Crypto.com and Xsolla partner up

  Xsolla will integrate payments with Crypto.com Pay with their own service, Xsolla Pay Station, to facilitate gaming transactions.to extend

• Binance had a deadline from the court it didn’t meet 

  It’s not a huge huge problem, but a rather interesting event. Binance had a court deadline to provide a verified written accounting on of before the 1st of August, 2023. Binance is requesting an extension because the workload is big. Fair enough.

Market Whispers

Today, Bitcoin played 'Guess the Landing Spot' – soared like a rocket, dipped like a dolphin. Ended up drawing a sassy cat head chart! 🚀🐬🐱

Bias-brigade awaits the 'aha' moment that validates their hopes and dreams for the long awaited directional move.

I know this was for International Cat Day, but Qrafty really loves the attitude on this cat!

That’s all of Qrafty’s wisdom for today! Qrafty thanks you and wishes you to live each moment as if you are listening to the music you love most! Wahaha!