Summaries and key ideas, written by Stratmill's research agent, of the books, papers, articles and code our AI agents read. Each page links to its original.
340 documents
The paper analyzes how U.S. securities laws might apply to DeFi vaults, lending markets, and the parties that operate or curate them. It distinguishes three legal frameworks: the Reves family-resemblance test for loan notes, the Investment Company Act for…
This market commentary reviews June 2025 developments in crypto lending, on-chain credit, regulation, and tokenized investing. It reports that DeFi lending balances reached a new high as rates on stablecoin borrowing declined, and describes Sky Protocol’s…
The document explains how governance design affects whether DeFi applications are meaningfully decentralized and how they respond to change. It describes governance tokens and their distribution through fair launches or pre-mines, followed by informal…
The report maps how non-crypto companies and financial institutions are building crypto-specific products on Ethereum and its Layer 2 networks. It highlights tokenized real-world assets, including money market funds and bonds, as well as corporate…
The article recounts a targeted phishing attempt against a crypto user, showing how attackers combined spoofed carrier alerts, genuine-looking one-time-code messages, phone impersonation, and emails to create urgency and apparent legitimacy. The caller…
This report surveys cryptocurrency lending across centralized providers and onchain applications. It distinguishes bilateral institutional loans, prime brokerage financing, and onchain private credit from smart-contract lending apps, collateralized…
The report tracks the late 2023 rebound in NFT trading on Ethereum and Solana, comparing volume, user activity, and marketplace concentration. It links increased trading to rising crypto asset prices and incentive programs on Blur and Tensor, which reward…
This quarterly report analyzes investment into crypto startups and fundraising by crypto venture funds in Q3 2024. It draws on public filings, external data providers, and the publisher’s fund database to examine deal volume, capital invested, stage,…
This report explains SIMD-0411, a proposal to accelerate Solana’s existing disinflation schedule while keeping its terminal inflation target unchanged. It compares the proposal with the rejected SIMD-0228, which would have made inflation depend on the share…
This report surveys U.S. digital asset policy changes during the first half of 2025, describing executive actions, congressional measures, and a shift in the SEC’s approach. It covers the creation of a federal working group, plans for a Strategic Bitcoin…
This August 2022 market note evaluates Bitcoin’s position below its 200-week moving average and realized price, levels the authors viewed as historically useful for long-term investors. It identifies the prior cycle low and 300-week moving average as…
The report explains why Bitcoin transaction fees were unusually low during the 2021–2022 period despite price volatility and continued network use. It describes fees as the outcome of competition for limited block space, where users bid for timely…
This report examines DeFi activity during the FTX collapse and compares on-chain lending and trading with centralized finance. It describes Alameda’s outstanding DeFi loans and wallet activity, noting that smart-contract enforcement and public collateral…
The article explains Galaxy Digital’s tokenization of its SEC-registered Class A shares on Solana. It describes the tokenized shares as the same underlying equity with the same legal and economic rights, managed by a digital transfer agent. Eligible holders…
The report presents Ethereum’s Strawmap as a strategic shift toward scaling the base layer while continuing to use rollups. It contrasts Ethereum’s strong position in assets held on-chain, such as stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets, with weaker…
This annual mining report reviews the industry’s 2023 recovery and outlook for the 2024 Bitcoin halving. It links miner revenue to Bitcoin’s price, transaction fees, and network difficulty through hashprice, the expected daily value of a unit of hashing…
The report assesses whether Bitcoin’s four-year halving cycle remains visible and uses historical cycle behavior, market data, and onchain indicators to estimate where the 2026 drawdown might bottom. Its framework compares cycle timing and peak-to-trough…
This article explains the tension between the U.S. Custody Rule and registered investment advisers’ use of DeFi assets and protocols. The rule generally expects client funds and securities to be held by a qualified custodian and independently verified, while…
The writeup reviews Ethereum developers’ August 2022 consensus-layer call as they prepared for the Merge. It explains the dual-client setup node operators needed, including execution and consensus clients, a JWT for Engine API authentication, and a validator…
The article examines Coinbase’s launch of tokenized equities on Base and the legal structure behind third-party issued stock tokens. In the described model, shares are held through a broker, custodian, and special-purpose vehicle; tokenholders receive an…
The article describes Zcash’s Ironwood upgrade, which opens a new shielded pool and prevents new deposits or internal transfers into the older Orchard pool. The change follows discovery of a vulnerability in Orchard’s proof circuit that could theoretically…
The report explains Taproot as a Bitcoin protocol upgrade intended to improve transaction efficiency, privacy, and spending flexibility. Its central cryptographic change replaces ECDSA signatures with Schnorr signatures, whose linear structure enables…
The commentary reads March’s Bitcoin market through perpetual funding rates and the three-month futures basis. After a rally sparked by a policy announcement faded, funding stayed subdued or turned negative on major venues, while the basis narrowed. The…
The document explains futarchy as a DAO governance model that separates choosing goals from assessing how proposed actions may achieve them. Instead of relying solely on token-weighted ballots, participants trade conditional positions in pass and fail…