(2024-04-07) Crypto Is Going Great Kucoin Busted How Kickstarter Shot Itself In The Foot With Blockchain Tether Goes Ai

David Gerard: Crypto is going great: KuCoin busted, how Kickstarter shot itself in the foot with blockchain, Tether goes AI.

Blockchain case study: Kickstarter.
In December 2021, Kickstarter announced that it was pivoting to blockchain! Nobody had any idea what this meant — including Kickstarter, who couldn’t advance a single coherent reason, let alone a plan

Why did Kickstarter do something so stupid? It turns out that Andreessen Horowitz, through their a16z Crypto unit, promised to buy $100 million of early Kickstarter investors’ shares in return for 25% of the company — if Kickstarter would just say they were adopting “blockchain.”

The particular blockchain was Celo — a basket-based stablecoin intended to copy Facebook’s ill-fated Libra, with Libra’s original creator Morgan Beller on board as an advisor. Celo happens to be another a16z portfolio company.