Before Reddit, we all thought our hobbies and interests were unique.

You felt alone in your fascination with taking pictures of trees that look like old men or your obsession with long-haired French Bulldogs.

Then, Reddit taught us that we might not be so different. There’s a subreddit for everything, from paintings of monks drinking beer to airing pet peeves in long-term relationships.

But could the Reddit network of strange, little communities be the source of a powerful, new cryptocurrency?

Espresso Shots

☕️ Tornado Cash’s Federal Appeal

Six Tornado Cash users brought their case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in an attempt to add Tornado Cash to the list of American-sanctioned entities.

Tornado Cash is a crypto mixer, which increases user privacy by mixing the user’s crypto with a larger pool, thus hiding transactions.

Tornado Cash and other mixers have been controversial for their money laundering potential.

The appeal argues that the U.S. Treasury both overreached and incorrectly sanctioned Tornado Cash, which as an asset, is both immutable and ownerless.

The appeal has received public support from Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer.

It’s a pivotal battle because, in a world without mixers, every cocktail is just straight up or on the rocks.

☕️ SEC Celebrates Itself

The SEC took the time to publish a report to celebrate its own performance this year.

"Investor protection and enhancing public trust in our markets requires that we work with a sense of urgency, using all the tools in our toolkit," wrote SEC enforcement division director Gurbir S. Grewal. "Whether it was by leveraging risk-based initiatives, seeking robust remedies, rewarding cooperation, protecting whistleblowers, or returning nearly a billion dollars to harmed investors, the Enforcement Division stood up for the investing public."

In 2023, the SEC brought over 784 enforcement actions and redistributed over $1 billion to harmed investors.

Hopefully, everyone at the SEC’s year-end celebration took the time to rub Gary Gensler’s head to bring luck and positive regulatory enforcement into 2024.

☕️ Reading Minds with AI

Unbabel, a neural link tech company, gave a live demonstration at Web Summit of their astounding AI capabilities.

Project Halo is an effort by Unbabel to decode desire by reading neural impulses; literally reading subjects’ thoughts.

Project Halo’s noninvasive neural link could allow patients who are rendered nonverbal by conditions such as ALS to communicate via messages or text-to-speech functionality.

“There is a universal language that happens inside of our brains,” said Unbabel CEO Vasco Pedro. “What I mean by this is, when you look at fMRI images of people that speak different languages, but are thinking of the same object, they basically activate the same areas of the brain.”

It’s a potentially revolutionary development in human communication, but we can’t help but be a little disappointed that Project Halo didn’t involve any aliens or power armor.

Polled Brew

Spilling the Beans

Reddit’s Token Shoots to the Moon 🚀

If you’re online enough to be reading our crypto newsletter, chances are, you’re already familiar with Reddit.

The ever-growing host of subreddits has taught all of us that there is no interest too niche and no question too embarrassing for a group of well-meaning strangers to weigh in.

Hell, even my Dad knows about Reddit. He uses it to discuss American vs. Scandinavian styles of firewood stacking.

Reddit has somewhat cemented itself in the online discourse of… just about everything.

And if you already assumed there’s an r/cryptocurrency, you’d be right.

But r/cryptocurrency is the source of an exciting, potentially groundbreaking crypto development that you probably haven’t heard of, and that’s MOON.

MOON is the native token of r/cryptocurrency. MOON tokens, sometimes called Reddit Community Points, were established by Reddit in 2020 as part of the site’s initial foray into crypto.

MOON tokens were used to incentivize community engagement and awarded to users who positively contributed to discussions on r/cryptocurrency.

MOON gradually gained ground in the crypto space, trading at $.50 at its peak in July 2023.

And then in October of this year, calamity struck. Reddit announced that it would be shutting down its MOON program amidst regulatory uncertainty surrounding crypto.

In the chaos following the announcement, there were accusations of insider trading, as the moderators of r/cryptocurrency were made aware of the announcement an hour before the shutdown, with some engaging in massive sell-offs of their MOON token.

A sketchy situation, but maybe the right move, as MOON’s value nosedived in the hours following the announcement, down 85% to $.0198.

Now, it might seem like MOON’s story ends there, but that’s not the case.

Moon’s revival, like crypto, and even Reddit itself, is community-driven.

R/cryptocurrency’s moderators announced an update on Monday that would pave a new way forward for MOON.

“No new Moons can be created.

All exchange listings remain intact.

Moons can continue to be listed and traded by exchanges and wallets as before.

The contract will forever remain unchanged, rendering Moons completely decentralized.

TL;DR - This means that Reddit will give up control of the contract and send it to a burn address, so that effectively no one will have control of the contract. Not Reddit, not the mod team.” The update reads.

And their effort hasn’t gone unnoticed. Since the decision to further decentralize and cap MOON was announced, MOON surged up 113%, up to just under $.13.

These actions signal to the rest of the crypto that MOON isn’t just Reddit-flavored crypto, but a worthy competitor ready to be taken seriously.

Now, if you want to follow this development more closely, or even get involved yourself, head on over to r/cryptocurrency.

Don’t go to r/moon. That one’s just pictures of the moon. Or maybe do. It’s kinda peaceful.

Crypto 101

Intents: Crypto’s latest buzzword, intents offer a new way to interact with the blockchain.

The user expresses an intent such as “I want to convert Bitcoin to Ethereum on ___ blockchain, and the intent is carried out by an intent solver.

There’s no limit to how intricate or demanding an intent can be and the intent solver receives a fee proportional to the difficulty of the intent.

The Last Sip

The Last Sip: If neural link tech like Project Halo goes mainstream, you know that we’re immediately putting a neural link on our dog, so we can finally learn what ancient, vile curses he’s barking at the vacuum cleaner.

Stay Caffeinated,

Coffee & Crypto Team

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DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.