With every price fluctuations, we witness an exponential growth of new websites, newsletters and youtube channels talking about crypto. I would love to tell you that they are all providing us with great quality content, meaningful articles and documented analysis ; indeed, the more it goes, the more spams and click-baiting articles are filling our newsfeed.

Because caring about the quality of your sources should be your top priority, and because knowledge should be your goal, I though that listing the newsletters I read the most could be a good idea. Over the last years, I figured out they were a great source of information that helped me to learn about the technology, the concepts, the evolution and the trends.

Before to dive in, the classic disclaimer :

English is not my native language : feel free to let me know about errors and mistakes.

My list of the must-read newsletters about blockchain and DeFi

1Marty’s Ƀent : a daily newsletter highlighting signal in Bitcoin with some musings on macroeconomics and Liberty in the Digital Age. Your uncle Marty is also the host of the excellent podcasts TFTC (Tales From The Crypt) and The Rabbit Hole with Matt Odell. Subscribe to the newsletter here, and listen the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Anchor, Overcast…

Last issues :

• #990: Check your privilege, Western Elites : Bitcoin is providing utility to many individuals in Africa.
• Issue #989: Are we at the precipice of the “suddenly” part of currency debasement? Hold on to your butts, freaks.
• Issue #988: “Cyber attacks”, a scapegoat? Seems like a good way to put Bitcoin in the crosshairs of the public and make it an enemy of the state.

2Messari’s Unqualified Opinion (from Ryan Selkis) : Messari is an online database for the crypto industry that provides data insights, pricing, and research on crypto-assets (some of you are already familiar with it as I mentioned it in the first Blockchain Lesson about on-chain data). In this daily newsletter, Ryan shares research from the Messari team, curated news and his well informed takes on crypto space. He’s also the host of the Unqualified Opinions Podcast, a weekly show featuring candid, fast-paced interviews with crypto’s top builders and investors. Subscribe to the newsletter right here.

Last issues :

• 05/13/2021 – EnDAOment Management : Roberto and Mason dive deep into DAOs. As the bull market has caused DAO treasuries to balloon over the past year, Messari’s analysis of the current DAO landscape shows a crisis in protocol balance sheet management. 
• 05/12/2021 – Not a 502 Gateway : Will explores how Gateway will help Compound expand to entirely new markets such as cross-chain bridging and stablecoin issuance. Gateway enables cross-chain lending and borrowing without token wrapping.
• 05/11/2021 – Seeking Alpha : Jonathan revisits Alpha Finance’s history and outlines what is in store for them.

3Glassnode Insights & Bitcoin Uncharted : here is another newsletter from a data aggregator website, the popular Glassnode. Those insights provides with weekly contextualized analysis and updates drawn from on-chain market intelligence. Subscribe to this newsletter here. And if you love those on-chain analyzes as much as I do, you could also subscribe to the Bitcoin Uncharted newsletter from Yann & Jan (co-founders of Glassnode), a goldmine of on-chain technicals!

Last Glassnode insights issues :

• 05/12/2021 – DeFi Uncovered: The State of DeFi : an analysis of key metrics that describe the adoption, stickiness, and explosive growth of the DeFi ecosystem.
• 05/10/2021 – The Week On-chain (Week 19, 2021) : Bitcoin consolidation continues as miners accumulate and supply on OTC desks drains. Meanwhile ETH benefits from capital rotation to new ATHs.

Last Bitcoin Uncharted issues :

• Uncharted #6, Global Macro Edition : today we’ll explore Bitcoin’s inflation hedging properties and why they are currently dominating the prevailing narrative.
• Uncharted #5 : we will focus on describing the types of market participants that are currently active, and in particular the effect they have on the market cycles, and we will finish by making some macro connections, which we believe are extremely important to consider right now.

4The Pomp Letter by Anthony Pompliano : Founder and partner at Morgan Creek Digital, the blockchain specialized subsidiary of the investissement management firm Morgan Creek Capital, Pompliano, is a listened voice of this industry. This newsletter, dedicated to institutional investors, provide a personal analysis of the daily news in the crypto industry. If you like it, you’ll love the podcast version, The Pomp Podcast.

Last free issues :

• 05/13/2021 – Bitcoin, Mining, and Elon Musk : debunking the unfair comparison of bitcoiln and US dollar energy consumption
• 05/12/2021 – NFTs And What You Need To Know : everything about NFT’s.
• 05/7/2021 – On-Chain Metrics Show Bitcoin Is Coiling Like A Spring And Ready To Rip Higher : on-chain analysis from Will Clemente, who has become one of the best bitcoin analysts in the industry.

5The Defiant : Created by Camila Russo, the Defiant is, to me, one of the best newsletter about Decentralized Finance. Born as a newsletter (you can subscribe here), today The Defiant is also a website and a podcast. Clear and informative, a very good start if you want to learn about DeFi.

Last issues :

• 05/13/2021 – Elon’s Bitcoin Dunk Drives Proof-of-Stake Coins Rally + Vitalik Says UNI Should Become an Oracle Token + AITO Platform Builds Yield-Generating NFT On Top of Aave + xToken DeFi Project Hacked For Over $25M.
• 05/12/2021 – Vitalik Sends SHIB Meme Coin to The Dog House + Crypto’s Top 10 Gainers Show Little Non-Speculative Demand + Red Flag Alert: A Framework for Vetting Crypto Projects Part III.
• 05/11/2021 – Tuesday Tutorials: Farming for Push Notifications & Gasless Legos w/ DeFi Daver + DeFi news.

6HackerNoon : This newsletter is not specifically Blockchain related, but deserve to be in this list for the quality of it’s content. With over 7000 writers and 200,000 daily readers, The HackerNoon website focuses on reporting the latest news related to software development, startups, artificial intelligence, and blockchain/cryptocurrencies. The quantity of articles is colossal, and the daily newsletter is a good way to catch up with the top notch articles. To subscribe, simply go to the website and fill your email address in the “The Hacker Noon newsletter” section in the top down.

Exemple of a Noon Notification (a Hacker Noon newsletter) :

7Staking Economy : here is an interesting monthly newsletter about staking and Proof of Stake. Each issue feature an overview of the most important articles, news and updates related to PoS crypto-assets. Edited by Chorus One, a staking provider. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.

Last issues :

• #54: Superlinear Staking : Chainlink staking whitepaper, Lido for Solana, The Graph Subgraph Migration, SKALE Denali upgrade, and more !
• #53: Crowdloans and Cross-Chain : Polkadot Crowdloans, IBC and Cosmos zone launches, Mina launch, and more !
• #52: Consolidation or Centralization : Liquid staking on Terra, validator M&A, decentralizing Binance Smart Chain, Mina release candidate launch, and more !

8Coindesk Newsletters : created in 2013, Coindesk in one of the most visited website about blockchain news and informations. As of today, in addition of the website, Coindesk is hosting some great podcasts (my favorites are Money Reimagined and The Breakdown), a TV-like channel and a bunch of different newsletters. Here is the list (my favorites in bold) :

• Crypto Long & Short : weekly insights, news and analysis tailored for the professional investor.
• First Mover : from big moves to deep insights, everything you need to make sense of the crypto markets and beyond, daily.
• Money Reimagined : exploring the transformation of value in the digital age, weekly.
• State of Crypto : how policy and regulation impact the crypto world – and the other way around, weekly.
• The Node : what the crypto world is talking about today, daily.
• Valid Points : breaking down Ethereum 2.0 and its sweeping impact on crypto markets, weekly.

9The Block : like many of the source previously cited, The Block is a cross-plateform media. The website is a reliable and newsworthy source, I had not the chance to listen their podcast yet (but I’ll do before to write an article about the best podcasts, I promise…), but the newsletter is also very pertinent, with the most important topic of the day. You can signup on this page.

Last issues :

• 14/05/2021 – What the heck are tokenized stocks? And are they securities? What do the Fed’s draft standards for vetting ‘novel institutions’ mean for crypto banks?
• 13/05/2021 – Tether reveals a breakdown of its reserves for first time since 2014 launch + We tried China’s new digital yuan wallet.
• 12/05/2021 – A closer look at the European Investment Bank’s first Ethereum-based bond + Uniswap’s UNI should become an oracle token, says Vitalik Buterin

The more, the merrier

After the list of the nine newsletters that I read the most frequently, here is the newsletters I read sometimes. If none of the previous newsletters were your cup of tea, maybe you’ll find your fit in this list :

MIT Technology Review newsletters, Unbankd, Blockchain newsletter from IBM, The Bitcolumnist, NFT Lately, William Clemente III newsletter, Decrypt newsletter.

I hope you’ll find your daily beater in this list. If you know other newsletters that deserve to be listed, feel free to contact me. And expect a following of this article soon, I’ll do the same with podcasts and youtube channels.