The worst people at a party talk endlessly about themselves, bring nothing, and hog all the good snacks.

The worst people on a sinking ship surge ahead of the women and children to take the best lifeboats.

And the worst newsletters make you pay to subscribe.

But when it comes to crypto, the worst of the worst may surprise you. We’re not here to talk about white collar criminals or cringey social media personalities.

No, the worst of the worst in crypto are individuals you may already be familiar with, but that doesn’t make them any less disgusting.

Come with us on a hate-filled deep dive in today’s newsletter. 😈

Espresso Shots

☕️ New Biden Tax on Crypto Mining ⛏ 💲

The Biden Administration is attempting to introduce a new, punitive tax on crypto mining to reflect the practices' environmental impact.

The new tax would force crypto miners to pay taxes equal to 30% of their mining’s energy costs.

Though the Biden Administration estimates that this tax could create $3.5 billion in the next ten years, it’s unlikely that this bill will make it through Congress as Republicans aren’t likely going to get on board with federal measures that punish crypto.

But Biden will push on with the bill anyway, insisting that “crypto minecraft” is as bad for the environment as it is for young people.

☕️ The Bitcoin Bet is Over Early 🪙 🎰

Balaji Srinivasan, the man behind the $1 million Bitcoin bet, has already thrown in the towel well ahead of the June 17th deadline.

Last March, Srinivasan bet Twitter personality James Medlock $1 million that Bitcoin would surge past the $1 million mark in just 90 days.

Srinivasan has already admitted that’s not going to happen, but he’s actually paid out more than a $1 million in an effort to raise awareness about crypto and the trend that he calls “hyperbitcoinization,” or in normal brain English, “mass Bitcoin adoption.”

Srinivasan gave $500,000 to James Medlock, $500,000 to the charity, Give Directly, and $500,000 to Bitcoin developers.

“So, I settled the bet ahead of time and donated even more than I had committed,” wrote Srinivasan. “I spent my own money to send a provably costly signal that there’s something wrong with the economy, and that it's not going to be a ‘soft landing’ like Powell promises—but something much worse.”

Despite Srinivasan’s charitable giving's and efforts to raise awareness, James Medlock surely couldn’t help but notice that Srinivasan only paid him half the amount they agreed on and intends to break his legs.

☕️ The World's Top Crypto Hubs 🏡 🪙

The results of a survey to find the world’s most important crypto hub were released in a report conducted by European crypto investment firm Greenfield, and the results may surprise you.

In surveying the responses of 68 heads of crypto companies and exchange, Greenfield discovered that Lisbon, Portugal was considered the world’s top crypto hub.

50% of the respondents put Lisbon among their top three most important crypto hubs in the world. New York and Berlin tied for second place at 35%.

And what makes Lisbon a crypto hub? Cryptocurrencies are not considered currencies in Portugal and are therefore non taxable.

Additionally, a booming community of American expats have been drawn to Lisbon’s low cost of living, 300 days of sunshine, stellar seafood, and cheap, strong coffee.

Though Texas did not rank among the list of top crypto hubs, Texans concluded that a European survey had to be biased against the Lone Star State, and fired their guns into the air in celebration anyway.

Spilling the Beans

The Worst People in Crypto 👿 🙅‍♂️

Now, when we say “The Worst People in Crypto” there are probably a couple of people that come to mind.

Maybe you think this is going to be a damning expose on Do-Kwon’s behavior, the South Korean fugitive behind Terra Labs and the LUNA collapse.

Or you think this is going to be yet another piece dunking on FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried.

Maybe we’re going to go niche and talk about BitBoy or other cringe influencers that ruin the space for everyone.

You’d be the closest with that one. But no, we’re here to discuss a broader, more harmful kind of influence.

The worst people in crypto aren’t really even in crypto.

We’re here to talk about ignorant, celebrity endorsements.

And nowhere was that on display more prominently than the 2021 Super Bowl.

We had lengthy, high-budget FTX ads from both Tom Brady and Larry David. *Cue the Curb Your Enthusiasm whoopsie-daisy song.

Now, you would think that these celebrity endorsers such as Damon, David, Shaquille O’Neal, Steph Curry, Kim Kardashian, Post Malone, and Madonna are getting their just desserts as they’ve been served with lawsuits for the role that their crypto endorsements played in misleading the public to massive, investor losses.

But, “No!” we say, that’s not enough! We’re going to drag them in this newsletter as well.

John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight ran a crypto-dedicated episode last week on the failures of Terra, FTX, and Celsius.

Why now? It’s been quite a while since any of these companies or banks were breaking news and John Oliver last covered cryptocurrency in 2018.

Maybe they just ran out of things to write about last week. Hey, no judgment, we truly empathize. You try writing a newsletter on a slow news day.

Feel free to watch it here. There’s nothing groundbreaking in there and John Oliver is about as funny as… he usually is.

But the one aspect of the Last Week Tonight coverage that really stuck in our craw was the Steph Curry ad for FTX.

Jump to 15:35 if you want to watch it.

But the language in the ad is exactly the kind of ignorant endorsement that got us in this mess.

“I’m not an expert and I don’t need to be,” says Steph Curry into the camera. “With FTX, I have everything I need to buy, sell, and trade crypto safely.”

One of the founding principles in crypto is “DYOR” or “Do Your Own Research” and it seems like not a single one of these celebrities did an even passing skim over the product that they were hawking.

Except weirdly, Taylor Swift, who performed her due diligence and turned down an FTX ad.

But these advertising blunders by celebrities will be easily forgotten. Larry David and Matt Damon will come out of this smelling like roses.

It’s crypto’s reputation that will be damaged, not theirs.

But would we be so forgiving if Kim Kardashain was in a superbowl ad for youth vaping, lead paint, or tainted baby food?

It just shows such a profound irresponsibility to loudly, proudly state that you don’t really understand what you’re selling.

And these actors shouldn’t even be taking commercial gigs anyway! We get that it’s a huge, quick payday...

But maybe you stick with movie and tv roles and give the advertising gigs to the weird, character-actor-looking types out of Upright Citizens Brigade and the Groundlings.

They need it.

Meme of the Day

Sorry Damon, but at least you have a fallback career in agriculture.

Crypto 101

Distributed Ledger: The technological backbone of cryptocurrency.

The term Ledger refers to a record-keeping tool used in accounting to document financial transactions. Think of the dusty book at an old western general store that a shop-keep uses track of the credits and debts of his customers.

A Distributed (or decentralized) Ledger refers to any system or database that records actions (usually transactions) across a network of multiple computers (also referred to as nodes).

It is this Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) that powers Blockchains and other decentralized systems and applications.

It’s the opposite of how a centralized network functions, with a central server or as we like to call it, “a singular point of potential failure.”

The Last Sip

In honor of May the 4th, or as nerds call it, “Star Wars Day,” we’re going to take Star Wars, but make it crypto.

• Episode I: The Do-Kwon Menace

• Episode III: Revenge of the ETH

• Episode VI: Return of the DeFi

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.