Research
Note: I (used to) write a lot and this page is only sporadically updated. The best way to keep up with my work is to follow me on Twitter.
This is at the top because it’s very good. Along with the Coin Metrics team, I fingerprinted every major Bitcoin mining ASIC and figured out how many of them were mining on the network. I then used that to derive network-wide energy consumption and average efficiency. Read it here.
Nonce Analysis
Galaxy Digital
I’ve written a lot of articles with Galaxy Digital’s research team.
Dogecoin: The Most Honest Sh*tcoin was our desk’s first breakout piece and the world’s first institutional Dogecoin report. The title speaks for itself.
Taking Stock of The Crypto Correction covered the May 2021 price action, which is no longer the latest correction.
Examining the Latest China Bitcoin Ban and Following the Latest in China’s Crypto Crackdown covered the Chinese crackdown on crypto as it happened.
Crypto & Blockchain Venture Capital—Q2 2021 covered the VC scene that quarter.
Stablecoin Markets Show Bullish Sentiment covered stablecoin free-float supplies and market dynamics.
I’ve also written a guest piece for Galaxy Digital’s mining desk’s blog.
A Hashhiker’s Guide to Mining Derivatives discussed the financialization of mining and the next step in the industry’s development, which I believe to be the evolution of a sophisticated hashrate derivatives market.
Anicca Research
I wrote an article and open-sourced a model for Anicca Research, a mining-focused research shop.
The Intelligent Bitcoin Miner, Part II (with Leo Zhang and Jack Koehler) developed a Monte Carlo-based simulation model for estimating mining profitability. The model is entirely open source, and users can adjust any of the assumptions made in the paper.
Coin Metrics
I’ve written a several features for Coin Metrics’ State of the Network, mostly focusing on mining and derivatives.
Following Flows Series:
Following Flows: A Look at Miners’ On-Chain Payments measured the amount of bitcoin held by miners and the quantity of funds flowing to and from their addresses using the first methodology for accurately estimating these values.
Following Flows II: Where Do Miners Sell? assessed the scale of miner selling on exchanges and determined that miners were not responsible for dips in Bitcoin’s price.
Following Flows III: Measuring Ethereum Miner Activity ported over the Coin Metrics miner flow methodology from Bitcoin to Ethereum, analyzing both aggregate miner flows and miner-exchange flows.
Measuring Bitcoin’s Decentralization assessed Bitcoin’s decentralization across supply dispersion, miner dominance, and exchange market share.
Derivatives’ Disparities: Surveying the Bitcoin Perpetual Swap Market looked at the current state of the perpetuals market and analyzed the differences between perpetual swap contracts on every major exchange.
When Markets Misalign: Mispricings and Reference Rates discussed prominent dislocations in cryptocurrency markets, their causes, and their impacts on derivatives settlement.
The Half-Time Show: The State of Bitcoin Network Security After the Halving estimated the proportion of Bitcoin hashpower provided by Antminer S7 and S9 miners from the network’s nonce distribution. The feature also looked at the impact of the 3rd halving on the network’s security.
The Signal and the Nonce Redux: From S9s to S17s posited a relationship between anomalous patterns in Bitcoin’s nonce distribution and the types of hardware used to mine on the network and looked at Bitcoin’s nonce distribution broken up by mining pool.
Deribit Insights
I wrote a guest piece for Deribit Insights, a blog run by the largest cryptocurrency options exchange.
Stratum V2: Migration and Decentralization laid out the case for upgrading from Stratum V1 to V2 and discussed the role that out-of-band payments play in incentivizing this migration.
The Block
I’ve written several research pieces for The Block, primarily focusing on Bitcoin privacy and scaling.