I don't know if you freaks have noticed, but - if you've been able to wade through the vapid wasteland that Crypto Twitter has devolved into - there has been an abnormal amount of qual content in the form of Medium posts and Twitter threads that I'd like to share with you today. This issue may be longer than your average, but I promise it'll be worth your time. Here's what piqued my interest so far this week:

The incredible team at Coinmetrics dropped this piece on Monday that dives into the history of coinbase output data in the Bitcoin blockchain. For those who may not be too sure what a coinbase output is, it gives miners the ability to write messages in blocks they mine. Some do this to signal the blocks that they mined. Satoshi used the coinbase of the Genesis Block to write "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks". In my opinion, coinbase data is fascinating because it allows us to leave bread crumbs of who what we were for future generations. We're lucky that miners started taking advantage of this and, assuming they've been doing so in good faith, we can see just how vicious the mining pool competition has been over the years. A fascinating, quick read if you have the chance. Also, Coinmetrics is currently hiring. Would be a dope company to work for IMHO.

Our friends Yassine Elmandjra (who's been showing up in this rag a lot lately) and Misir Mahmudov teamed up to bring us the first of three-part series exploring whether Bitcoin + cryptocurrencies will be a winner take most or winner take all market. To set the scene, the gruesome twosome does a quick rehash of monetary history, how Bitcoin's emergence fits into that history and the innovations it presents. A great read that condenses a lot of information into a concise synopsis, a great starting point for someone looking to understand Bitcoin in historical context. Two thumbs up!

Another gruesome twosome teamed up to bring us a breakdown of one of the most popular dApps on Ethereum, Maker Dai. Su Zhu and Hasu look at the nature of stable coin arbitrage, the mechanics of keeping the price peg, and why Dai may not be able to scale past a certain point due to the nature of the contract. A great, relatively quick read that taught me a lot about something that I'm not particularly interested in, but found fascinating nonetheless.

Here's a great thread from RainDogDance about something that I have been extremely curious about as someone who is running a lightning node; how to become a profitable routing node. I must admit, it seems pretty daunting. Regardless, it is a very informative thread that will hopefully spark some quality conversation around making this process easier for the average user. Will we expect this level of competency from every user going forward, or will we be able to hide a lot of these processes under the hood of a UI? It also seems like dedicated hardware/machines that are constantly online may need to become more commonplace.

Our boy Sourabh attempts to give Bitcoin skeptics better FUD to focus on when decrying the funny Internet money in this piece. A great read for anyone looking to hone in on Bitcoin's upcoming hurdles and how one may attempt to spin narratives around them.

Final thought...

Homemade chicken noodle soup and falling asleep by 8:30PM is an incredible experience.