Matthew De Silva

Polychain was one of the great success stories of the cryptocurrency boom. A hedge fund that once boasted more than $1 billion in assets under management, Polychain was founded in 2016 by Olaf Carlson-Wee, the colorful 29-year-old son of Lutheran pastors who works out of a secret location in a San Francisco warehouse. He sports a collection of vintage windbreakers and would spend weekday afternoons hiking without his phone, out of range of investors, according to a Wall Street Journal profile (paywall).

The dominance of bitcoin’s network infrastructure by Chinese companies could be coming to an end. China’s National Development and Reform Commission, a state-planning body, announced new proposals April 8 which may prohibit bitcoin mining, the energy-intensive process used to secure transactions and generate new units of the cryptocurrency.

Tax refunds for US taxpayers are down $6 billion compared to 2018 according to the latest data from the IRS, the result of changes in the tax code. For many individual taxpayers, that comes as a nasty surprise, as the average refund for early filers is 8.8% smaller than last year, down from $2,035 to $1,865.

Policymakers in the US and Europe have long worried that terrorist groups might use cryptocurrencies to fund attacks and operations. Stateless digital money that can’t be blocked certainly sounds like a dangerous proposition. Zoobia Shahnaz, a Pakistani-American woman, helped feed that narrative when she was indicted for laundering money through bitcoin in December 2017. She pleaded guilty to “providing material support to ISIS” in November.

Bitcoin awoke from its slumber this week. The cryptocurrency’s price, which after reaching $20,000 in 2017 has languished near $4,000 for most of 2019, surged more than 20% on Tuesday (April 2), surpassing $5,000. The cause? A mystery trader—or group of traders—reportedly placed a series of large orders on major exchanges, including Coinbase, Kraken, and Bitstamp.

As the price of bitcoin swelled in 2017, many investors felt like Scrooge McDuck, wallowing in their newfound riches. Sadly for them, though, the yearlong party came to a screeching halt in early 2018. Between January and February last year, the global crypto market shed $550 billion in digital wealth. Some investors lost as much as 96% of their holdings in bloodbath. All told, bitcoin sank from $14,100 on January 1 to $3,870 on December 31, a 73% fall.

Jeffrey Skilling knows a thing or two about blocks and chains. A few weeks ago, the former CEO of Enron was released from prison, having served 12 years for his role in the energy giant’s collapse. Now a free man, Skilling is preparing for a new energy venture, one which is rumored to use blockchain technology, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Remember that time you accidentally sent your mom a text meant for your partner? Let’s say goodbye to that awkwardness.

If you have ever bought bitcoin, chances are that you placed your order in a specific, deliberate increment. Maybe you bought $25 or $100 worth of the cryptocurrency, or perhaps 1 or 2 bitcoins. (At the moment, one unit of the cryptocurrency costs about $4,000.)

Jack Dorsey, the dual CEO of Twitter and Square, announced last week that he will hire a handful of engineers and a designer to contribute to the cryptocurrency ecosystem.

In an effort to curb cryptocurrency speculation, financial regulators are limiting the amount of money that traders are allowed to borrow. New measures may help reduce price volatility, giving institutional buyers the confidence to invest in the crypto asset class. Improved price stability could also make bitcoin more viable as a day-to-day currency.

In his 74-page screed, Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the suspected New Zealand shooter, claims he invested in a cryptocurrency called BitConnect. Longtime crypto observers know BitConnect as an infamous pyramid scheme, which falsely promised a 1% daily interest payment. The project is better known for generating memes than investment returns. However, Tarrant says he profited from BitConnect’s rise and used his riches to travel the world.

Google might be stunting your online experience. Today, 75% of desktop and laptop searches pass through the world’s most popular search engine. Google’s next closest competitor, the Chinese search giant Baidu, accounts for just 12%.

Supposedly, you can’t take anything with you when you die. Unfortunately though, for customers of QuadrigaCX, a Canadian cryptocurrency exchange, that’s not quite true. Sometimes, you can die with a priceless secret in tow.

Cryptocurrency regulation can evolve as a project matures. At least that’s the view of Jay Clayton, the chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, who suggested in a recent letter (pdf) to a congressman that a digital coin can transform from a security into a commodity.

Buyers of cryptocurrencies, perhaps not surprisingly, are often motivated by a desire to “get rich quick,” according to recent research published by the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority.

For the last five years, a Bulgarian brother-sister team ran a fraudulent, multibillion-dollar cryptocurrency called OneCoin.  Together, the US Justice Department says, Konstanin Ignatov and Ruja Ignatova duped investors who bought OneCoin through a global, multi-level marketing network.

Wouldn’t it be nice to vote using your iPhone instead of waiting in line or fiddling with absentee forms? The city of Denver, Colorado announced yesterday that it will run a pilot for smartphone voting. The plan is to allow overseas voters, active military members, and eligible dependents to cast ballots for May 2019 municipal elections using Voatz, a mobile app that uses blockchain technology.

Coinbase, a digital asset exchange based in San Francisco, recently acquired Neutrino, an Italian firm that specializes in cryptocurrency surveillance. The deal is intended to help the exchange cut down on theft, a major problem for the cryptocurrency industry. Shortly after the announcement, though, Twitter users sounded the alarm about Coinbase’s shiny new toy.

Mark Zuckerberg wants in on crypto.

Whether you’re sick of fake news and trivial updates from acquaintances, or simply find yourself spending too much time on Facebook, browser extensions like News Feed Eradicator and Kill News Feed can help you reclaim control of your online experience. These tools carefully excise your News Feed while leaving the rest of Facebook intact. Without your News Feed, you can still take advantage of Facebook’s most useful features—messaging, groups, and events—but it’s less likely that you’ll be sucked into an endless cesspool of updates.

Sam Altman, president of startup accelerator Y Combinator, has long been fascinated by universal basic income, the idea of providing regular, unconditional cash payments to citizens to enable a baseline standard of living. In fact, he’s taken the idea seriously enough to pursue a large pilot study.

As investors grow restless about the slow development pace of ethereum—an open-source computing platform powered by cryptocurrency—a vocal minority may have unwisely driven away one of the project’s longest-tenured developers after an online spat. Afri Schoedon, who has contributed to ethereum since 2015, almost entirely in unpaid roles, cheekily tweeted the following on Feb. 15:

Doug Galen is CEO and cofounder of RippleWorks, a private foundation based in Redwood City, California that connects technology experts with growing companies that need guidance. Created in 2015, RippleWorks was funded through large donations of XRP by Ripple, a cryptocurrency company focused on international settlement, and Chris Larsen, ex-CEO of Ripple and cofounder of RippleWorks. In addition to his role at RippleWorks, Galen is a lecturer in management at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business where he teaches Startup Garage. He spoke with Quartz’s Matthew De Silva.