Hey everyone, happy halloween! This is Crypto This Week, your irreverent  crypto news digest I’m Richard Yan, the co-founder of the Vite project,  dressed up as a funny news reporter
Let’s get to the news! Of course, the winner of this Halloween’s costume contest is Facebook, for dressing up as Meta  Facebook employees, I mean Meta employees, said that Zuck was so excited about the rebranding it  was great to see him finally show some emotion Oh wait – never mind, they were actually looking at  his avatar I think their development in virtual reality is exciting though Although Elon Musk  feels a bit threatened, since Meta is providing a much cheaper way to escape life here on earth
The former president of the Y-Combinator, Sam Altman, has created something called Worldcoin  that’s meant to be distributed more equitably than bitcoin The only catch is that, anyone  wishing to receive the airdrop must prove they are a unique human by having their eyes scanned That’s right, now that the tech overlords read our emails,  know our browsing habits and track our online spending patterns, they are finally coming  after our cornea I hear their motto will be “you can’t spell Worldcoin without Eye” Some international news
China appears to consider un-banning bitcoin One of the government agencies  put out a notice soliciting public opinion on whether to blacklist the crypto mining industry  That’s right, this is a complete 180 that no one saw coming:  The Chinese government seeking input from its citizens Now, the public notice is likely just a formality and won’t change the crackdown People on the  ground said that unlike many blockchains, the government won’t be doing a rollback
More international news The Nigerian President formally unveiled the country’s  Central Bank Digital Currency, eNira, to “make financial transactions easier and seamless” This is good news for everyone looking for a cheap and fast way to help out a Nigerian prince  Hey, at least you’re not falling for the scam of bank fees Coz that’s the real crime
Chainlink is in the news The Associated Press is tapping the oracle service to provide untamperable  news data I was a bit confused at what this means, until this paragraph cleared it up: “AP says it will use Chainlink to automate actions that happen on-chain, including  informing election results, sports outcomes, a company's quarterly financials All  of that will now be cryptographically signed to verify the data comes from the Associated Press" So … I guess this is solving the serious problem of people confusing headlines from the AP  and headlines from the Onion But obviously, this does nothing to combat fake news It just makes sure that when  you get fake news in your inbox, you have cryptographic proof that it came from the AP
And I assume using a blockchain means the fake news will be made immutable The New  York Times heard this, and was like, “how much for a Chainlink integration?” Terra is in the news A few months ago, their CEO was at the Mainnet conference in New York,  and on his way to speaking on stage, he was stopped and served papers by someone from  the SEC In response, Terra is now suing the SEC, claiming they didn’t follow due process  Ballsy move
Ballsy move The SEC didn’t really care though  They heard this and were like: oh I guess we are so “terra-fied”! Justin Sun withdrew 4 billion dollars from Aave amid rumors of a vulnerability,  draining Aave’s liquidity pool by about 20% Aave fans said this was the most disastrous  withdrawal since Afghanistan But the real news here is that Justin controls at least  4 billion dollars of assets
Just imagine how much he’d be worth had he put it in Shiba last August If you don’t know the reference, here’s what happened Some wallet put $8000 into Shiba last  August, and is now worth $45Bn The Congressional Democrats are like,  “that’s a lot of unrealized-gains you got there
” The University of Pennsylvania made news this week by becoming the first Ivy League university  to accept crypto for course payment That’s right Now, to be sure,  this only applies to a six-week program for digital assets But I’m pretty sure you can also  cross-register with the environmental studies department for a carbon neutrality surcharge This brings up to our last news item
Matt Damon  appeared in an ad for cryptocom this week Take a look Big week for special effects ads, I guess But think about the tagline here,  fortune favors the brave? Is this glorifying degen culture? I’m  surprised this isn’t one of those 2-in-1 commercials also promoting Rounders 2! Does fortune really favor the brave though? Isn’t it more like fortune SELECTIVELY favors the brave,  because, you know, survivorship bias? And you know what else would be a great slogan? How about  “Stability cherishes the prudent”? Or “peace-of-mind likes the even-handed”?
