Pastas, Boba Guys, Binance, and Previews
What I'm Up To (Pasta), and What's On the Mind (Web3 stuff!)
Hey there,
Thanksgiving is over and you are now allowed to play Christmas music. Signed, me, a Christmas lover that needs boundaries with Christmas.
Anyway, here’s what I’ve been up to since Nov 3, as well as what are the top Web3 headlines I’ve been paying attention that isn’t FTX/SBF.
It’s me,
Allen
What I’m Up To
My steamdeck found it’s second life with the latest update to Baldurs Gate 3 which allows me to play that game on my handheld without pixelation (I hate pixelation and all pixel games alike). This is thanks to the use of software to “upscale” low resolution graphics into high resolution (it’s like the detective trope of “enhance that photo”, but for reals.)
I fucking love indian pasta fusion ever since I tasted it in Madrid. Turns out, Los Angeles has it at Pijja Palace, a visually loud sports bar attached to an Inn in Silverlake, serving Malai Rigatoni (Tomato Masala, Cream, Coriander - if “Tom Yum could be Pasta, it’s this) and Kesar Rickshaws (Saffron, Parm, and Indian Long Pepper - if you wanted a more adult mac & cheese experience)
Rooster & Rice just opened and as it goes through it’s grand-opening operational pain, it’s conceptually proven to me that Chicken & Rice with multiple sauces will win my stomach easily.
Wagyu Meat and Grill is a stupid name for what is a delicious and fast beef bowl restaurant that is superior to flamebroiler and yoshinoya in the U.S. in all the ways.
I’ve made fun of sauce-forward pasta places and then found an actually amazing place called Pasta e Pasta in Little Tokyo- and let me tell you, it’s god damn good.
I had omakase at Kakurega; a place that attracts locals and Japanese businessmen alike. While some of dishes were a miss, it had some all star winners including fried prawn, various snapper fishes, and needlefish.
I went to the SoCal StartUp day on Nov 8 and it is the worst even I’ve ever been to for this kind of thing. Not their fault; it was supposed to be organized using outdoor grounds however a recent Tustin fire combined with infamous Santa Ana winds railroaded that concept.
Finally finished Leviathan Falls from the Expanse Series, completing a sci-fi series that lasted 9 books. I can now understand why the Amazon TV series stopped at Season 6 / Book 6. The Trilogy of 7 to 9 is insane.
I’m now listening to the Fellowship of the Ring as narrated by Andy Serkis. If you want to listen to a world of English Mythology that isn’t Arthurian-based, this is exceptionally good.
Morning Brew has my attention again with the launch of “Morning Brew All Access”. (and because I know they follow this newsletter - Sorry, I’ve ignored you guys for like 6 months as I was getting murdered by my transitions into a working professional again). And from what I’ve seen so far, I think I need permission to share ;)
And, I’ve written 70% of the content for 5 pieces that I want to share here.
The Web3 Headlines Getting My Attention
Allen’s back at looking at Blockchain & Crypto
Boba Guys & Solana
(Boba Guys rolls out passport program built on Solana)
Quick Recap:
It’s a loyalty reward program. Solana, the blockchain name on Solana Beach in the San Diego Area, has partnered with Boba Guys to make a great small-business retail value proposition in the form of loyalty program. Except it’s basically invisible to the consumer.Thought:
What I love about this experience is that if you go to the Boba Guys page, nothing about this says blockchain.The only concrete evidence is this tweet and the youtube video at the bottom of the boba guys page.
That’s the best way to position blockchain technologies in context with the average consumer.
Blockchain should be boring.
You read that right. Blockchains should be boring because they solve the most boring problems.
It’s a giant cloud calculating engine with permanent history that no single entity needs to maintain. It’s a digital data logistics infrastructure. The consumer doesn’t need to know about the software features; you don’t sell with technology - you sell with seamless and invisible experiences.
What the partners and businesses building on blockchain technologies make is exciting, and they will set the impression of what non-web3 users will experience.
General Crypto Blockchain Thoughts:
Bitcoin is the defacto non-stablecoin blockchain of treasury
Ethereum is currently the dominant blockchain of high-value / luxury goods.
Tether and USDC are the current defacto stablecoins.
What remains to be seen is the blockchain for commodities and the blockchain for loyalty rewards. The blockchains that have risen and lasted the last two years are attempting to figure out this question.
Binance fined $4.3b and CEO pleads guilty.
(Department of Justice | CoffeeZilla recap).
Quick Recap:
Binance Admits It Engaged in Anti-Money Laundering, Unlicensed Money Transmitting, and Sanctions Violations .Requires Independent review for 3 years as well an increase in Compliance & Controls…
and did you know the CEO can’t answer if Binance can work with a Big 4 auditor?
Thoughts:
Tabling the amount of fraud, what’s importance to note about this settlement is the level of cooperation between the DOJ (US GOV), Binance, and the positive signal it sends to the broader crypto industry.That’s right, positive signal.
There are many ways this could have proceeded, many going the way of Enron and even the trigger of a bear market (think of what happens when “bankruptcy” is announced for Celsius, Blockfi, and FTX - other centralized exchanges).
FTX was “too big to fail”, and then it failed, and then it became the biggest thing to take out the market. In the case of Binance, Binance is rather too big to fail, and this move can be seen as the DOJ stepping into protect the U.S. Based consumers from a company whose CEO (CZ) indicated he can’t work with Big 4 auditors and isn’t able to confirm the possibility of it.
Why now?
The last 18 months (wtf 18 months) of crypto-exchange collapses have provided a digitally-bloody trail of retail investors who had no protections from the very company’s they had deposited money with.
Celsius, BlockFi, FTX - even Luna and others, all demonstrated what happened when quite literally the “heroes” of the financial freedom via crypto are actually the ones you can’t trust.
It’s important to note that the “heros” (aka the individual person’s driving narratives) can be someone you agree with, they still are businesses that don’t even know you exist.
Leader of $70M Cryptocurrency and Binary Options Fraud Schemes Extradited to the U.S. (DOJ)
Believe it or not, the DOJ has been hunting people down. And I love it.
Quick Recap:
Krstic, a Georgian (country) 48 year old man, had led several cryptocurrency schemes including various “options”, “mining”, and other lucrative investment opportunities that all panned out as scam to the tune of $70m stolen. He had been operating as early as 2017. As of November 2023, Krstic has been extradited to the U.S.
The schemes:
Start Options, Trinity Mining, Hedger Tech, BTC Mining Factory, Bitcoin Trading World, Dragon Mining, BTC Trader Online, Crypto Trading World, Go Solar Mining, BTC Falcon, Perpetual Energy, Perfect-Options, Options Rider, Option Giants, Banking Options, Aeon Options, Bancde Options, Instant Options, Fast Options, and Elite Options
Thoughts:
If this gentleman and his group didn’t take U.S. investor dollars, and if he was able to have enough operational plumbing to block U.S. investors all together, there’s a decent chance this person would still be operating.
What’s important:
Cryptocurrency providers the ultimate and quickest way to transmit “Stored value” aka money. Because speed is the feature, it’s also incredibly easy to scam people out of their money.
Preview of What’s Next
I’m trying to trick myself into writing by saying “I already did the work".
So here’s 6 posts I need to finish and click send on.
