Welcome to another dimension. 🌪 ❄️

You’re traveling to a new dimension not only of sound and sight, but of mind. You don’t know what day it is and you’ve consumed an astronomical amount of your mother’s baked goods. It’s somewhere between Christmas and New Years.

It is an area which we call, “The Holiday Zone.” Now, hoist your bloated neck off the arm of the couch. It’s time to read some news.

Espresso Shots

☕️ Bitcoin Hash Rate Drops During Winter Storm ❄️ 🌪

A “bomb” cyclone descended on the midwest last week, canceling thousands of flights and cutting power for large swathes of the country.

But the ramifications of this beast of a winter storm extended beyond the U.S. The hash rate of Bitcoin dropped 40% during the storm.

A hash rate is the amount of computational power being used to mine a specific currency. The higher the hash rate, the network is more decentralized and therefore more secure.

The hash rate dropped because several significant crypto mining operations had to shut down due to safety concerns caused by the wintry conditions.

Riot Blockchain closed down its facility in Texas as well as Core Scientific, which ceased all operations until Friday.

Ledger has yet to comment on the status of its hardware, as temperatures threaten to move their flagship wallets from cold to frozen solid.

☕️ A New Judge to be Appointed for SBF Case 👨🏻‍⚖️ 💰

Judge Ronnie Adams, the judge intended to preside over SBF’s trial, had to recuse herself for a potential conflict of interest.

Judge Adams stepped away from the trial because her husband, Greg D. Andres, is a partner at David Polk & Wardell, a law firm that once advised FTX.

Though Andres did not directly advise FTX, Adams still decided to step aside in order to, “avoid any possible conflict, or the appearance of one.”

The two leading judges in consideration are Judge Judy, in which case the trial will air on CBS, or Judge Dredd, who will issue his ruling in slow-motion, on drugs.

Whichever judge takes over the case, just know we're all personally judging SBF who was spotted traveling first class this past weekend:

☕️ North Korea Over-Phishing OpenSea 🎣 💻

A massive, North Korean phishing scam has been uncovered involving 500 fraudulent websites.

The aim of the phishing scam was to target NFT users minting new keys, with particular focus applied to tokens on OpenSea, X2Y2, and Rarible.

This most recent scheme is part of the larger, now proud tradition of North Korean phishing.

Reports from South Korean intelligence agencies indicate that North Korean hackers have made off with roughly $1.2 billion in the past five years.

As the North Korean saying goes, “Give a man stolen crypto and he’s rich for a day. Teach a man to phish and he’s rich for life.”

Spilling the Beans

Yes, you heard us, Crypto you can smoke! 🔥💨

Ok so you can't smoke the crypto, but it's crypto that encourages smoking. You get it.

It seems that there’s rapidly becoming a token for every niche interest and weed is no different.

The Crypto Cannabis Club is chief among them, having already sold 10,000 of its adorably named, “NFTokers.”

Membership to the Crypto Cannabis Club includes real world, members-only meetups as well as discounts on a wide array of cannabis products and partnered brands.

But aside from uniting people with the common interest of getting profoundly, deliriously high, crypto may have massive benefits for the marijuana industry.

American cannabis’s banking problems are well established. But in case you’re a square, we’ll fill you in.

Medical Marijuana is currently legal in 38 states while It’s available for recreational use in only 21 states.

Despite its partial legality, Marijuana is still illegal on a federal level, which means that major banks and established lenders can't set up camp in what would be interstate commerce - and therefore be federally regulated.

This means that many marijuana dispensaries are cash-only businesses, which makes them sketchy by nature and prone to robberies.

But look over there, on the horizon, is that a solution to pot’s financial woes?

Could it be? Could crypto save weed?

Drug distribution and decentralized online finance go together like peas and carrots.

Just look at the short-lived success of Robert Ulrich’s Silk Road, a marketplace where crypto was traded for every drug imaginable.

But with weed, could crypto step out of the dark web and into the light?

It’s certainly a culture fit.

Weed enthusiasts and crypto connoisseurs share an anti-mainstream, libertarian bent. You think sober minds pushed the value of Bored Apes that high?

We believe there was some weed involved in the decision between buying the chimp with the shutter shades and the chimp with the hand-rolled cigarette.

But on a practical level, the utilization for crypto and weed sales is still murky. For now.

Crypto’s current volatility doesn’t make it much more economical than a cash-only business, even if it might make it safer.

In 2018, a dispensary in Washington did all of their banking through Coinbase until the exchange abruptly shut them down, citing federal regulations.

Coinbase has never commented on what went down there but it seems that a regulated, centralized exchange can’t service a dispensary directly. But DeFi could.

The real issue is that despite optimism, crypto and marijuana, despite mass adoption, both exist in a gray area of federal regulation.

Both exist but are poorly regulated political taboos, entirely unable to help the other until they grab a more solid, legislative foothold.

But, when that finally happens, we think this will be a match hydroponically grown in heaven.

For now, those of us not in one of those 21 states will have to continue getting weed behind Baja Fresh from Zach the “part-time substitute teacher” who you’ve only ever seen in pajama pants.

Meme of the Day

You don't want this, Dewey!

I think I kinda want it?

The Last Sip

If crypto and weed hope to one day truly partner up, you know those budtenders are going to come up with some stupid, crypto-based strain names. We’re already on it.

• Lit-Coin

• Stoned Ape Yacht Club

• Dope-n-Sea

• Etherenumb

• Hash Rate

Stay Caffeinated,

Coffee & Crypto Team

Thanks so much for reading Coffee & Crypto!

If you find yourself smiling at any of our dumb jokes, or even *learning* something - make sure to share this newsletter with your friends!

If you get 10 friends to sign up - or even enemies, we don't care - we'll send you a swag box with some epic Coffee & Crypto merch! Just hit the Click to Share button in the section below to get started!

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.