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Original Research

Original research on crypto topics

Diving deep on everything from the foundational to the bleeding edge

Following Flows III: Measuring Ethereum Miner Activity

By |2021-03-09T01:53:10-05:00March 8, 2021|Karim Helmy, Original Research|

Ethereum and Mining The Ethereum community has always had a somewhat strained relationship with miners. The network’s proof of work algorithm, Ethash, was explicitly designed to be resistant to ASIC mining and hence miner professionalization. Since then, the network’s migration [...]

Following Flows II: Where do Miners Sell?

By |2021-02-23T16:22:58-05:00February 22, 2021|Karim Helmy, Original Research|

Miners are frequently blamed for causing dips in the price of Bitcoin. These accusations are often unsubstantiated—worse still, they’re sometimes based on faulty metrics that conflate mining pool payouts with miner spending, ultimately misleading their users. Accurately assessing the degree [...]

Bitcoin: An Unprecedented Experiment in Fair Distribution (Full Length)

By |2021-08-23T18:22:13-04:00November 10, 2020|Lucas Nuzzi, Original Research|

Much has been written about the fundamental differences between Bitcoin and other asset classes. In fact, juxtapositions of Bitcoin and established commodities such as gold continue to lure swarms of newcomers into this industry, institutional and retail-alike. But are there [...]

Following Flows: A Look at Miners’ On-Chain Payments (Full Length)

By |2021-03-03T01:53:06-05:00November 3, 2020|Karim Helmy, Original Research|

Key Takeaways Using a new methodology that looks at addresses one hop out from the coinbase transaction, this report quantifies miner holdings and activity. This approach improves on previous attempts at tracking miner spending, which inadvertently measured pool operator activity [...]

Analyzing the Fallout from the BitMEX Lawsuits (Full Length)

By |2021-02-05T21:27:46-05:00October 13, 2020|Antoine Le Calvez, Original Research|

On October 1st, the CFTC and Department of Justice jointly announced charges filed against BitMEX’s owners and operators. The CFTC is alleging they were illegally operating a derivatives trading platform and the Department of Justice that they violated various parts [...]

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