’Tis the season to be jolly, and what better way to celebrate than with this collection of crypto-themed goodies for your nearest and dearest?
Gather round the crackling Yule log and bask misty-eyed in the seasonal goodwill, as friends and family rip the wrapping off their gifts and say things like, “But Daddy, I wanted a Bluey plush,” and “Please, just this once, stop telling us about Bitcoin’s hard supply cap.”
Ledger Stax
Ledger Stax. Image: Ledger
Ledger’s latest offering is like no other hardware wallet on the market, with a sleek design courtesy of iPod creator Tony Fadell that elevates it from functional device to a desirable bit consumer electronics kit in its own right.
The credit-card-sized wallet packs a one-of-a-kind curved E Ink screen to show off your NFTs (is anyone still showing off their NFTs?) while inside it features the same secure element employed by the rest of Ledger’s line-up, to safeguard your digital assets.
Taschen is known for its coffee-table books with a price tag to match their heft, with a vast array of tomes covering art and culture. The publication of Taschen’s first book on non-fungible tokens earlier this year, then, was something of a coup for the crypto space—elevating NFTs to the lofty company of contemporary artists like David LaChappele, H.R. Giger, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, all of whom have their own Taschen books.
On NFTs is a wide-ranging survey of the NFT space, packing in 10 essays and profiles of 101 artists, alongside lavish illustrations. It doesn’t come cheap, though, with the Collector’s Edition clocking in at $850 and the Hard Code Edition, with a stainless steel slipcase, an eye-watering $1,750—so you’d better have made bank flipping Bored Apes.
Crypto degen culture truly has gone mainstream, with the arrival of HarryPotterObamaSonic10Inu merch in Walmart, of all places. The meme coin to end all meme coins, HarryPotterObamaSonic10Inu mashes together pop culture icons and eye-watering graphic design to create what is truly one of the t-shirt designs of all time.
Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency
Tracers in the Dark, by Andy Greenberg. Image: Penguin Random House
The world of crypto has—fairly or unfairly—often been associated with those of illicit finance and organized crime. According to this book by WIRED writer Andy Greenberg, many criminals were drawn to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies by the mistaken belief that they were anonymous—a notion that law enforcement agencies have spent years disproving.
Greenberg chronicles how police around the world have tracked down criminals including drug dealers and human traffickers, armed with blockchain analytics tools that expose their every transaction.
But, as cryptographer Sarah Meiklejohn points out, those same tools could just as easily be used for mass surveillance—with blockchain’s public record of transactions functioning as a panopticon. Not exactly cheerful holiday reading, but certainly illuminating.
If you’re after something a bit less blingy than the Ledger Stax, the Trezor Safe 5 is a safe bet (heh). The successor to Trezor’s Model T, the Safe 5 packs in a Secure Element EAL6+ chip, a color touchscreen and support for over 7,000 different cryptocurrencies.
Gone are the days when you had to fiddle around with two physical buttons to approve transactions, with the touchscreen providing a slick alternative interface.
Your cryptocurrency’s secured with Trezor’s new new SLIP-39 20-word wallet backup standard, its NDA-free open-source design, and its microSD card slot, which lets you store an additional randomly generated secret on a microSD card that adds an additional layer of security.
One of the few NFT collections to extend its appeal into the mainstream, Pudgy Penguins’ cute animal mascots have made them a natural fit for all manner of merchandise. This particular deluxe set bundles together a 12-inch plush toy, an action figure, a smaller clip-on plush, an igloo toy, and a certificate that lets you claim a free NFT (minted on zkSync Era) for the Pudgy World gaming platform. Reduced from $50, it’s a bargain for the NFT lover in your life.
The identity of Bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto remains a mystery to this day—but some people have had a stab at creating a likeness of them. This “Beautifully and Artistically Created” resin model is styled after a sculpture in a park in Budapest, Hungary, and comes complete with a reminder that “we are all Satoshi” (except for, per a legally binding UK court ruling, Craig Wright). Bathe in the bronze-effect glow of Satoshi’s munificence this holiday season.
CryptoPunks were the original NFT collection—and while the market has slipped a bit from the heady heights of 2021’s bull run, they remain a milestone in crypto history, fêted by museums, luxury brands, and auction houses. So it’s entirely appropriate that they’ve been honored with their own coffee-table book, which catalogs all 10,000 CryptoPunks together with a timeline, essays and contributions from the likes of NFT artist Beeple and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, among many others.
