Tokens are burning, the world keeps turning, but in the words of singer/songwriter Billy Joel, we, at Coffee & Crypto, didn’t start the fire. 🔥

But we did start the fire behind the Arby’s in your hometown, though. We’re sorry. We were playing with matches and notorious bad kid, Jack Ernst, brought illegal fireworks.

Everything got out of control and it was so scary. We're so so sorry.

Don’t tell our moms. Just read the newsletter and we can all act like this never happened.

Espresso Shots

☕️ $90 Million in Unauthorized Transfers from FTX US 💻 🇺🇸

As the FTX creditor investigation continues, the team has uncovered that about half of FTX US’s $181 million assets were subject to “unauthorized third party transfers.”

It took, “A Herculean investigative effort for our team to uncover this preliminary information,” said current FTX CEO, John Ray.

It is important to recognize that FTX and FTX US are entirely different corporate entities, but both equally capable of wrongdoing.

But in times of desperation, why wouldn’t you go to your American brother with the same first name?

Though it cost investigators a “herculean effort,” to uncover this information about FTX US, FTX Canada was incredibly forthcoming. FTX Switzerland and FTX Cayman Islands were decidedly less so.

☕️ More Real Estate Excitement in the Metaverse 🏠 💰

Metahood has raised $3 million in seed money in their attempt to become the Zillow, or even the Apartments.com, of the Metaverse.

If Metaverse users are going to own, rent, and inevitably be evicted from virtual property, they’re going to need a platform that lets them shop around. Enter: Metahood.

“Metaverse hype is down a lot, no doubt, but the trend isn’t going anywhere,” said Nick Tomaio, the founder of 1confirmation and one of Metahood’s greatest supporters.

“Games and world are continuing to offer virtual real estate, and there’s a need for a marketplace that makes these assets more accessible.”

And why is that Metaverse hype down? Maybe because developers are focusing on buying and owning virtual real estate on a program that has in no way suggested it will be fun, engaging, or even slightly more interesting than actual reality.

Metahood is also racing against its competitor, Metablood, which will allow users to find and buy compatible blood types as they bleed out in Meta’s virtual hellscape.

☕️ CZ Wants People to Stop Focusing on the Money ❌ 💰

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos (we’ll cover this nerdapalooza more in depth tomorrow), Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao expressed concern that crypto is too distracted by making money.

“When the tide recedes, all the hype goes away and it’s the fundamentals that matter,” said Zhao. “In our industry, we’re so close to the money… so many people get distracted by that and that’s all they focus on.”

Frankly, we feel the same. It disgusts us when players in the world of digital finance forget about their love of the digital and just focus on the finance. For shame.

“It’s not about any single coin, blockchain or exchange, it’s the fundamental technology that’s being evolved and will continue to evolve,” Zhao concluded.

Unofficially, Zhao also warned crypto investors and enthusiasts about other distractions such as gaming, food, family, and romantic love.

Spilling the Beans

Binance and the Great BNB Burn 🔥🪙

Binance, you know ‘em. You love ‘em. You hate ‘em a little bit probably.

Regardless, when it comes to crypto, Binance is the biggest player in the space and impossible to ignore.

But what happens when one of the biggest players gets, well, too big?

Well, things tend to get burned.

No, it’s not as dramatic as a viking raid or a small town library making an impromptu bonfire out of all of their copies of Catcher in the Rye.

This Tuesday, Binance burned over $600 million worth of its native token, BNB.

And while that may seem like an absolutely massive waste of value, it’s ultimately intended to preserve the value of the token.

When there’s too much of a token in circulation, it drives down the price, and some of those things will have to go.

This particular burn by Binance wiped out about 2 million BNB tokens.

Ideally, for their tokens economic health, there should only be about 100 million BNB tokens in circulation.

What Binance is doing is like hunting deer in season so there’s grass and sticks and berries or whatever for the other deer to eat.

They have to burn the token, for the health of the token.

In fact, Binance does this regularly, every quarter. It’s part of an auto-burn plan to keep their tokens strong.

History buffs (dorks) (us) may be familiar with this pattern. It was the Dutch Tulip mania, when the overvalued price of tulips in the 17th century created the first speculative bubble.

Something has gone terribly awry in your country’s economy when a wheelbarrow full of tulips is worth more than the several decades of savings you’ve kept in your bank.

For other moments in economic history when citizens were carrying wheelbarrows of currency, look no further than the German hyperinflation of 1923. And an entire wheelbarrow full of papiermark couldn’t even buy a newspaper.

And what did Germany do next? Well, uh, no, not that. They recycled all of those Papiermarks and created a new currency, the Rentenmark, which allowed them to… uh…

You know what? We’re done with the German metaphor.

What Binance is doing with the BNB token is just like Germany recycling the papiermark, and hopefully there will be no World Wars involved.

Fortunately, Binance does seem to have this down to a science. The amount of token burned every quarter is calculated by an Auto-Burn formula.

Though this BNB burn is easily the largest to date, it’s actually the 22nd token fire that Binance has set.

Previously, the largest Binance token burn was their 14th, two years ago, in which they burned $165 million worth of their native token.

Not to be outdone by Binance’s BNB burning, Airbnb intends to burn three quarters of their rental properties this Spring, when conditions are more flammable.

Meme of the Day

Also, the digital pipes have rusted through, so don't drink the digital water.

The Last Sip

In honor of Binance’s frighteningly worded but ultimately good mass-burning of their BNB token, we’ve come up with a short list of other things that are good to burn.

Candles: Cozy! Great for a power outage. Some might even say ideal reading light.

That Sweet, Sweet Ganja: We’re back on weed, folks! And bullish on anxiety. It also makes bad movies good and your friends funnier.

Bridges: That’s right. Cut out anyone in your life, personally or professionally, that’s ever wronged you. Especially, if they tell you to stop smoking that sweet, sweet ganja. Don’t listen to them. Listen to us.

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.