CoinDesk 20 Update: OXT Is In, BAT Is Out

The CoinDesk 20 has made its first change since launching in July: Orchid (OXT) has replaced the Basic Attention Token (BAT).

Crypto Long & Short: Does Decentralization Create Value or Destroy It?

This week, bitcoin rallied past $11,000 and value in DeFi climbed toward $4 billion. But what's the point of crypto if regular markets are just as volatile?

Money Reimagined: Let’s Be Privacy Scolds

Technical solutions to protect financial privacy may not suffice. Stronger cultural norms around minding one’s own business are needed as well.

The Origins of the World’s Oldest Bitcoin Metric, Explained

Bitcoin days destroyed (BDD) was first introduced as a concept back in 2011. At the time, it had only been two years since the creation of the world’s first cryptocurrency, bitcoin. Individuals were already beginning to innovate ways to measure on-chain transaction activity and value.

10 Years After Laszlo Hanyecz Bought Pizza With 10K Bitcoin, He Has No Regrets

Laszo Hanyecz's 10,000 BTC pizza buy 10 years ago has a special place in bitcoin folklore, highlighting, however expensively, that participation is necessary for network success.

What’s Next for Bitcoin After March’s Crash – CoinDesk Quarterly Review

Will bitcoin move beyond "digital gold"? Is ether viable as money? In 24 charts, CoinDesk Research looks at what happened to crypto assets in the first quarter and what may emerge in the future.

Mind the Gap: Why ETH Price and DeFi Adoption Aren’t in Sync

Demand for DeFi lending services built on ethereum shows a pattern of inverse relationship to the price of ETH. When ether prices are falling, the amount of ETH locked in DeFi tends to rise. Most recent data indicate the relationship operates the other way, too.

How Fund Managers View Lending and Staking: 3 Takeaways From a CoinDesk Research Webinar

In December, we invited two fund managers, both long bitcoin and other crypto assets, for a CoinDesk Research webinar on lending and staking. Jordan Clifford of Scalar Capital and Kyle Samani of Multicoin Capital joined us to discuss how they evaluate risk and returns in crypto lending and staking, what crypto assets' risk-free rate might look like, and what DeFi needs to do to attract investors and new users.

Exchange Tokens: Neither a Great Investment Nor a Great Market Indicator

It’s surprising that, despite the success of their issuers, exchange tokens have not been more successful as investments, or as metrics of adoption in one of crypto assets' best-proven use cases, speculation.