After Libra put crypto in the national news over the last few weeks, it was thankfully quieter this week. One great story delved into why it is that practically all the top execs at Coinbase left in the last year. And Ars Technica analyzed how Facebook execs changed their tune on Libra, while a survey bears out what many thought would be the consequence of Libra: it would be positive for Bitcoin.

This week’s Unchained made waves. Pantera has the oldest crypto fund in the US, the Pantera Bitcoin Fund, and so a lot of follow-on stories quoted guest Dan Morehead, the founder and CEO, on his price projections. By his estimation, a $42,000 Bitcoin by year’s end is right in line with Bitcoin’s previous trajectory. Meanwhile, on Unconfirmed, I’ve also got Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire, talking about why the company launched a subsidiary in Bermuda.

Don’t forget: Sign up for the September crypto weekend retreat at Omega Institute here!

This Week’s Crypto News…

There’s a choice that every crypto company faces: Be more like a tech company or like a financial services one? And underneath that are other questions: adopt a move-fast-and-break-things philosophy that might entail an Uber-like disregard for regulation? Or go the Wall Street route of a pricey compliance department? These two philosophies clashed in the form of two specific people within Coinbase, leading to a mass exodus over the last year of nearly all its top executives, many of which had been with the company since the beginning.

In a related story, The Block looks into trading volume of the coins about to be listed on Coinbase, and sure enough, there are more upward spikes than downward ones.

An Ars Technica piece detailed some of the ways in which Facebook and Libra Association executives have changed their descriptions of how the Libra blockchain vs. the on- and off-ramps would work. In a few instances, they described a decentralized network like Bitcoin’s with centralized wallets who would enforce regulations. But the writer, Timothy B. Lee, noted that Calibra head David Marcus changed his tack in his Congressional testimony: “’As far as the Libra network is concerned, we’ll have an anti-money-laundering program,’ Marcus said on Tuesday. Later he promised to ensure that ‘the proper measures are taken to avoid this network to be used for other purposes than it was designed for.’”

Meanwhile, a survey finds that people trust Bitcoin more than Libra.

And it sold more than a quarter million in Q2, “by far, the highest quarterly sum that Ripple has ever sold,” Larry Cermak, research director at The Block tweeted.

Placeholder Capital introduces what they call the “Network Value to Token Value (#NVTVratio),” which simply “divides the network value of a smart contract platform by the total value of all assets launched on that platform.” By that metric, Ethereum’s NVTV is around 2 and EOS’s is 234.

But again, it doesn’t answer any real questions. As Blockchain president and chief legal officer tweeted, “wait why did we need a no-action letter for this.”

Could the BitLicense get overhauled? That’s potentially on the docket for a new task force, whose community members were named: ConsenSys founder Joseph Lubin; Global Blockchain Business Council CEO Sandra Ro; adjunct fellow at the foundation for Defense of Democracies Yaya Fanusie; co-founder of Blockchain at Microsoft York Rhodes; director of regulatory relations a Ripple Ryan Zagone; and professor of law at Cardozo School of Law Aaron Wright. (Ro and Fanusie were past guests on Unchained.)

Justin Sun Sincerely Apologizes

If you didn’t follow any of the Justin Sun/Warren Buffett ridiculousness, you didn’t miss out on anything. Instead, read this to see just how much of the Tron white paper appears to have been plagiarized. But if you did follow it, here was one of the funnier tweets about it: “I would like to thank @justinsuntron for his fine work in convincing Warren Buffett that this space isn’t full of shady scammers.” – @jebus911