?? Trouble at Devcon

?? Trouble at Devcon

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Welcome to Web3 pills, the daily crypto newsletter that keeps you up to date on news, even on a Friday.

Here are your ??’s for today:

  • Trouble at Devcon
  • Tether replaces commercial paper with T-bills
  • Trending stories
  • NFT of the day

TROUBLE AT DEVCON

This week, thousands of developers and crypto enthusiasts descended upon Bogotá, Colombia for Ethereum’s?Devcon. At a time in which markets are down, many people use developer conferences such as this one as a source of motivation and opportunity to bond with others in the space.

However, it appears that some bad apples may be trying to ruin the event for everyone. Here’s the breakdown:

The trouble began brewing on Tuesday, when a member of Blu3 DAO publicly tweeted a picture of a group of guys and stated that a group of women had been “harassed by a gross guy!”

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Initially, many rushed to offer their support and seek to “cancel” whoever this bad guy was. However, the situation began to turn when the alleged perpetrator known as “the brown backpack guy”?published his own side of the story:

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In the article, he went on to describe in detail what went down at the event. He claims that it all started when he was helping work the 3D photo booth and told the group of girls to “Jump” since it would look better with the background.

He then stated that the girls responded by saying “Who the F*** are you!? Get out!” To which he replied with a “thumbs down expression”.

He goes on to say that after the encounter he was harassed by members of the Blu3 DAO + security at multiple events. This harassment included them walking up and flipping over his ID badge without his permission, and then checking through his personal photos at a different event.

Overall, the story told by the brown backpack guy painted a completely different situation than what was initially pushed by members of the Blu3 DAO.

As the story began to gain traction, many started questioning who was telling the truth. Despite it being 3 days since the initial allegations, nobody from Blu3 DAO has come forward to provide ANY details. At this point in time, the only details in regards to this interaction have been provided by brown backpack guy.

However, there has been a host of other information to come out about Blu3 DAO, and it does not look good for them.

First, an in-depth Twitter thread was produced by someone proving that Blu3 DAO had been misappropriating funds to personally benefit its founders:

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Then?a separate thread?came out with even more details. This document stated that the Blu3 DAO funding proposal of $1,000,000 had been “immediately” approved, which is odd for a grant of this size.

Furthermore it was stated that a founder had been awarded $50,000 for her book, that the founders had involved their personal company with the DAO, and that a husband of the sister of one the founders worked for Harmony which provided the grant… Ouch.

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As if that weren’t bad enough,?another Twitter user discovered?that they had included a shell script in their code designed to artificially “inflate Github activity” and other users began to question certain awards that the DAO members had claimed, but were not linked to any project write-ups or code (which is standard for hackathons).

This situation is still ongoing, and perhaps more details may emerge, but at this point I have seen enough information to give my current read.

Unfortunately it appears that the Blu3 DAO is a group of bad actors in the space. By all available evidence, they attempted to weaponize their identities to not only gain funds to personally enrich themselves, but also to harass/cancel an innocent man.

While I’m sure there are many great members in the organization, I also do question the underlying motivations of the DAO. There’s nothing wrong with pushing to bring certain groups of people in the space, in fact I believe diverse view points and backgrounds are vital to building a new internet. However, the DAO’s general framing seems to be off.

The reality is that Web3 is inherently open and permissionless. The entire point is that you don’t need permission from anyone to enter the new digital economy or build a project on a blockchain. And the issue of bias is inherently less prevalent since many top builders in the space are?fully anonymous. Name one other industry in which you can build a Unicorn project or raise millions of $ without anybody knowing your name?

I suppose if the angle behind your DAO is to weaponize your identity, and the underlying mechanics of the industry inherently limit bias,?then perhaps you may feel compelled to manufacture stories of bias to support your cause. Which is exactly what I believe happened down in Bogotá this week.

Everybody should feel welcome and safe at crypto events. By all available evidence, members of Blu3 DAO attempted to manufacture a story of harassment at the risk of brown backpack guy’s safety. This story not only caused harm for him, but it also hurts victims of actual harassment.

There is no room for this type of behavior in Web3, and I hope our industry gives them the cold shoulder that they deserve.

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TETHER REPLACES COMMERCIAL PAPER WITH T-BILLS

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In a year that saw the multi-billion $ Terra stablecoin crash, and the main blockchain of the Binance stablecoin halted; the largest stablecoin in crypto has continued to press on without a hitch.

No I’m not talking about USDC, although they have done well this past year. Instead, I’m talking about Tether or “USDT”.

For years, Tether has been the target of severe amounts of?FUD, largely having to deal with the elusive nature of its founders, and questions surrounding how its currency was backed.

There is?strong evidence?to suggest that at one point in time Tether was not fully backed and/or backed by questionable commercial paper. This obviously poses a concern since a failure of Tether at its current size could lead to a contagion effect that spreads to all of crypto & possibly the wider global financial system.

However, it may be time for us to start giving Tether some credit where it’s due. For starters, Tether has never stopped processing redemptions, even during a FUD-driven bank run back in May that saw it’s market cap decrease by 25% in a year. It should be noted, that most banks would not be able to survive this type of bank run on their own if this happened to them.

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Next, there’s the fact that the Tether tech has held steady, and been remarkably consistent with holding it’s peg to $1.

And now, we have even more promising news from Tether, as they have just announced that?they have eliminated all commercial paper from its stablecoin reserves. Instead, they have replaced their commercial paper with US Treasury Bills.

At this point, I believe it’s time to start giving Tether some credit. While their history has not always been pretty, their end results have always been consistent. I also think that it’s important that an alternative to USDC exists, especially since Circle seems keen on cozying up to regulators and big banks like Black Rock. Not to mention, their willingness to blacklist USDC holdings if asked to.

Maybe I’ll regret saying this one day, but I think many of us in the space need to start acknowledging that Tether might be the good guys after all.

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TRENDING ARTICLES

[The Block]?Binance launches $500 million fund to provide loans to Bitcoin miners:?The initiative comes as Bitcoin miners struggle to cope with Crypto Winter.

[Blockworks]?MetaStreet Secures $10M for NFT Loans in the Metaverse:?The latest raise brings the protocol’s total funding this year to $24 million.

[CoinDesk]?Crypto Trading Firm NYDIG Lays Off About 33% of Staff:?The layoffs had been going on for "several weeks," one person told CoinDesk.

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NFT OF THE DAY

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DeGods have recently received a lot of attention, and for good reason. However, there is another Solana NFT collection that deserves the spotlight, and that’s?Solana Monkey Business.

Launched back in August of 2021, SMB has managed to remain one of the top bluechip collections on Solana. Over the past year, they’ve continued to innovate by storing all metadata on Arweave (instead of centralized AWS) and launching their own SMB?marketplace.

There has even been a DAO created for holders called?Monke DAO, which is the first NFT DAO on Solana.

People tend to have a short attention span in crypto, so I think it’s important to highlight collections like Solana Monkey Business, that have stayed consistent over time.

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