Dispatch #124: 9 Years of Ethereum

Jan 27, 2023 3 min read

Dispatch

In this patch of your weekly Dispatch:

Ethereum turns 9
Goldman Sachs compliments Bitcoin
Retail holds it down

The Big Idea

9 Years Ago, A World-Changing Idea Was Shared

Many of you will no doubt know the key dates in Bitcoin’s history. October 31, 2008, when Satoshi shared the white paper for the first time. January 3, 2009, when the Genesis Block was mined with its famous embedded Times headline.

But how many of us know the date January 23, 2014? On that date, nine years ago this week, a 19-year-old named Vitalik Buterin posted a message on the BitcoinTalk forum titled “Welcome to the New Beginning.”

In it, he said that while “the grand experiment” of Bitcoin had tested “a trustless, decentralized database” and “a robust transaction system capable of sending value across the world without intermediaries,” there was one key feature it was missing: “a sufficiently powerful Turing-complete scripting language.”

Thus was born Ethereum. In the subsequent years, Ethereum itself, smart contracts in general, and all the systems that have been born out of that inspiration have transformed the crypto industry and the world beyond. We cannot wait for the next nine years!

The Latest In…

Bitcoin Is the Best Performing Asset of 2023

We’ve been tracking the crypto industry’s January rally. This week, before taking a little breather midweek, Bitcoin had hit 40% up on the year, topping out over $23,000.

It’s clear that the community is pretty mixed on what’s driving it. Some have argued that it’s market manipulation. Others are sure it’s the start of a blistering new bull run.

Still, others think it’s just a mean reversion as the contagion of last year seems to ebb. Whatever the case, as Goldman Sachs declared on Wednesday, Bitcoin is the best-performing asset of the year. Welcome home friends.

The Latest In…

The Global Regulation Landscape

The global regulatory scene is heating up as governments around the world race to finally get coherent crypto rules on the books. Here are some of the latest updates:

The all-too-often anti-crypto Indian government holds the presidency of the G-20 economic alliance this year.
The final vote on Europe’s Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) framework gets delayed to April.
The EU is voting on new bank rules that allow banks to hold crypto but with strict restrictions.
The Central African Republic – which made BTC legal tender last April – is now working on a broader crypto regulatory framework.
The UK Treasury is looking for a “Head of Central Bank Digital Currency.”

The Week’s Most Interesting Data Story

Retail Held it Down in 2022

The last bull market was the one in which the institutions finally actually showed up in size. However, the overall supply dynamics in the period following the crash of Luna/Terra last May show that the beating heart of Bitcoin and crypto is and remains retail investors.

According to Glassnode, the percentage of circulating supply held by retail entities (0-10 BTC) was fairly consistent throughout most of 2021 and the beginning of 2022, growing just 1.1% from March ‘21 to May ‘22.

However, subsequent to the crash of Luna, retail has had diamond hands relative to their institutional peers. Between then and now, retail entities increased their percentage of circulating supply by 4.4%, to 17.1% overall. Go retail!