Crypto Daily Sentiment, Vibe, Topics of the Day -
Monday, February 21st: Volatile morning, bitcoin 37-38k. Everyone continues to wear their global geopolitics, economics expert hats. Nonstop Russia/Ukraine talk. Tubby Cats everywhere too.
Tuesday, February 22nd: Small relief bounce ~39k. Possible ETH DAO hack from 2016 uncovered by journalist. Russia/Ukraine continues to dominate.
Wednesday, February 23rd: War talk continues interspersed with discussion of how to pronounce Eth(eeth) and other cryptos. Bearish day for bitcoin 37-38k.
Thursday, February 24th: Russia invasion of Ukraine tanks bitcoin to 34-35k. Lots of war talk. Markets bounce after Biden speech. People are somehow finding a way to make conflict about crypto - focusing on things like crypto donation money. “Buy the invasion” is a strategy being discussed.
Friday, February 25th: Green day for bitcoin. 38-39k. Everyone still war commentating. Lightcrypto calls out Traders xo and xz. Cobie - Fuck upwork? Jpeg donation launch. Luna leading altcoin rally. Slight optimism for relief bounce.
Saturday, February 26th: Pixelmon reveal is hilariously bad. Solid/Sex launch hype - Andre hype. Russia to be cut from swift rumors. Some altcoins look optimistic if bitcoin can behave.
Sunday, February 27th: EU and others deciding to cut off some Russian banks from the SWIFT-System. Bitcoin can’t crack 40k resistance yet.
Reminiscences of an Anon: Weekend Thoughts
The crypto markets continue to respond to headlines and be weighed down by the ongoing geopolitical situation while the degens are contenting themselves with early mints and launches. The dichotomy between the successful launch of Tubby Cats and Pixelmon is both interesting and hilarious. The secret right now continues to lie in being early to a project, so keep an eye on hyped upcoming whitelists and launches. Meanwhile the narrative and meta shifts unbelievably fast, an upcoming interesting one should be the launch of Evmos, which many speculate should offer opportunity even if it may be a crowded play. The end of this week however has me pondering about a continuing trend we can see playing out week by week. I’m intrigued by the desperate push we can see by traditional financial institutions and corporate players to show they can offer customers exposure to the growing digital asset ecosystem.
Large institutions, banks, startups, corporations - all can’t stop raising money for crypto ventures in fear of being left behind. You can witness this in the recent surge in companies entering the NFT and metaverse spaces with intellectual property applications. Earlier this month, the New York Stock Exchange filed a trademark application for trading NFTs. Also recently, McDonald's filed trademarks for "McMetaverse" restaurants, which also includes its iconic McCafe brand. Last month, Meta - formerly Facebook - submitted applications for registering Bitcoin and crypto service trademarks with Walmart also submitting seven patent filings connected to its plans to create its own digital currency and NFT collection. Disney, Youtube, Spotify, Puma, L’Oréal, Gucci, Monster Energy drinks, and many other brands have also thrown their names into the ring as of late.
To me, all of this poses an important question. What the fuck is the metaverse and web3 even supposed to look like? When you see trademark applications for things such as downloadable virtual goods consisting of, but not limited to, beverages, food, supplements, sports, gaming, music, and apparel, a person should ask themselves what this even means. Trademarks for non-downloadable virtual perfumery, along with hair care preparations and cosmetic body care preparations in a virtual environment raise equally perplexing questions. What will this look like for the end user? Will humans actually be interested in purchasing or partaking in such a virtual economic model where none of the goods are tangible? Virtual McDonalds won’t be as addicting since you can’t taste it - so why would a person be interested in brands in the metaverse? Who would even want to flex McDonalds in the metaverse? It sounds absurd.
The fact that these companies are investing however shows they feel there is profit to be made. Or they just don’t want to be left behind and figure why not. I always like to reflect on human psychology and humans often spend money on things because they receive some type of positive feedback or utility from their purchases and money spent. People have historically shown though that they enjoy spending money to receive cosmetic upgrades in games even if it doesn’t offer in game utility or real world use and are willing to spend money on these digital goods so there is historical relevance as support. A darker aspect to be saved for another day is the concept of preying on people’s weaknesses and exploiting things like loneliness and a desire for social connection. If this is where people will spend money in the future, then all these companies care about is being there to advertise to you. Capitalism in the metaverse. A final question for now is where will these companies plug into the metaverse? Which blockchain network will they choose, which infrastructure and middleware services will they utilize? Which wallets? All of this presents opportunities for retail investors and traders. Follow the money. Considering all this technology is still nascent and the story being written in real time, it will be important to follow the money over the coming months and years to see if implementation and adoption will be done poorly or well and whether retail will be able to profit from it.
I’m looking for active and motivated crypto people to join forces in a small group. If you’ve got fire in your belly, reach out to me: https://twitter.com/TheoDelarosa_
- Time moves differently in crypto. Crypto is an intricate game filled with various players operating across multiple time frames and with varying agendas. Day in, day out, the pieces are moving all across the board. Sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. Here’s a glimpse of what has happened so far this week in our little crypto bubble -
News:
BNY Mellon Scales Up Crypto Ambitions - By Tracking Customers' Bitcoin. The world’s largest custodian bank is integrating Chainalysis to help with risk management. With over $46 trillion in assets under custody, Bank of New York (BNY) Mellon is the largest holder of securities, commodities and cash in the world - source
FTX named beauty entrepreneur Lauren Remington Platt as its head of global luxury partnerships. Platt’s role will involve targeting major luxury brands that have yet to integrate into crypto. Platt will bring crypto into the fashion and luxury industries through partnerships within overlapping areas including, but not limited to, payments, luxury goods authentication, and digital art - source
Elwood Technologies, the crypto-focused technology firm owned by hedge fund heavyweight Alan Howard, announced a "strategic integration" on Thursday with Bloomberg. the integration is geared toward the institutional clients who use the Bloomberg Asset and Management Investment Manager, or AIM, a buy-side order management system used by about 15,000 clients who, collectively, manage more than $17 trillion in assets. The idea is to tie up Bloomberg's AIM with the capabilities offered by Elwood's trading platform - source
In protest of Russia's war, the FlexPool mining pool said it would cancel service to all Russian IPs and paying out outstanding balances, apologizing to Russian miners for this. The FlexPool mining pool is currently the fourth largest Ethereum mining pool - source
SBF tweeted that it will give $25 to every Ukrainian user on FTX. But there are also comments that SBF is using war for marketing, he should do more meaningful things such as providing healthy food - source
China’s Supreme Court adds digital currency to list of illegal fundraising methods. The new policy change aims to mitigate risks arising from digital currency fundraising and the absorption of funds from the public - source
On February 24th, Interlay won Polkadot's 10th parachain slot auction with 2,751,900 DOT locked. All 6 winners of the second batch of Auctions will access the Polkadot chain and go live on the mainnet on March 11, 2022 - source
An automatic liquidation of $500 million in ether (ETH) could occur on-chain if its price falls below $2,100, causing a Maker vault holder's position to become under-collateralized and putting further downward pressure on the second-biggest cryptocurrency. Going by Block Analitica's data, 7-Siblings has multiple debt positions on Maker vaults totalling about $500 million. All these positions have liquidation prices in the region of $2,100. If ETH falls below this level before 7-Siblings can re-collateralize, then they will lose their collateral as the system liquidates the funds - source
Payments company Block, formerly known as Square, said Thursday that it made $1.96 billion in bitcoin sales during the fourth quarter of 2021 via its Cash App, producing $46 million in gross profits from bitcoin. Block said Cash App generated just over $10 billion in bitcoin sales for 2021, representing $218 million in bitcoin gross profit - source
The Department of Justice said Thursday that Arthur Hayes and Benjamin Delo, co-founders of the crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX, have pleaded guilty to violating the US Bank Secrecy Act. The announcement closes a legal chapter that began in the fall of 2020, when Hayes and Delo, in addition to co-founder Samuel Reed and BitMEX head of business development Greg Dwyer, were accused of "evading U.S. anti-money laundering requirements," - source
American streaming television service Sling TV has partnered with Atlanta-based cryptocurrency service provider Bitpay for accepting cryptocurrency payments from customers for monthly subscriptions. Sling TV is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dish Network, the direct-broadcast satellite provider which also accepts crypto payments for subscription services. The streaming TV service will optimize Bitpay for this service and will accept seven different cryptocurrencies and five stablecoins - source
FTX has hired Lauren Remington Platt as its head of global luxury partnerships as the company looks toward marketing efforts beyond the sport realm. The new executive founded beauty service Vensette, for which she launched partnerships with Saks Fifth Avenue, Vogue, Michael Kors and Chopard to bring hair and makeup experiences to professionals. In her new role, Platt will target major luxury brands that have yet to integrate with cryptocurrency as a way to focus more on marketing to other consumer segments, such as women. She will be working closely with fashion model Gisele Bündchen, who leads FTX’s environmental and social Initiatives - source
The founder of the infamous crypto exchange BitConnect, Satish Kumbhani, has been charged for allegedly misleading investors globally and defrauding them of $2.4 billion in the process. If convicted of all counts, Kumbhani will be subject to a maximum total penalty of 70 years in prison. In addition, the DOJ recommends all BitConnect investors register themselves as potential victims - source
Bnext is the biggest Spanish neobank with a vision to become a leading financial technology platform in Spanish-speaking nations through its growing ecosystem of innovative financial products with its plethora of crypto remittance services. The 1st phase of its upcoming B3X token sale will start on Tuesday 1st March 2022 - source
The European Commission announced to remove a number of Russian banks from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) messaging system, aimed at hindering Russia’s capacity to carry out cross-border payments. Russian billionaires could potentially circumvent any sanctions put forth by the world leaders by using cryptocurrencies - source
Nearly $10 million bitcoin, ether and other digital assets has been raised since the Ukrainian government issued a direct appeal for crypto donations this weekend - source
Metaverse:
Newly created Solana-based NFT marketplace Neon has installed a vending machine in New York City to sell NFTs. No cryptocurrency is required to buy tokens - users can pay with a bank card. After paying, the machine will issue a physical card with a QR code, which must then be scanned in the app - source
According to the NFTGO annual report, by the end of 2021, the market value of NFTs has reached 10.49 b. 52% are avatar, 15% are artwork, 12% are game, and 10% are metaverse. The highest daily volume was $570 million - source
A much-anticipated auction of more than 100 CryptoPunk NFTs ended before it began late Wednesday. The cosigner, who goes by the moniker 0x650d, tweeted "nvm, decided to hodl". The value of the lot had been estimated to be between $20 million and $30 million - source
An anonymous nonfungible token (NFT) collector spent 204 Ether (ETH) worth roughly $488,800 (at the time of writing, considerably more when it occurred) on gas fees to mint 1,000 Tubby Cats NFTs. They spent more than $720,000 on minting the NFTs including gas fees - source
The floor price of NFTs from the project founded by popular influencer and pornstar Lana Rhoades has crashed an eye-watering 96.1%. Rhoades’ CryptoSis NFT collection consists of 6,969 tokens that feature cartoon style depictions of the influencer. The cost to mint plus gas fees totaled 0.18 Ether worth roughly $421, however, the floor price has since crashed to 0.007 Ether ($16) on OpenSea - source
A researcher posing as a 13-year-old girl witnessed grooming, sexual material, racist insults and a rape threat in the virtual-reality world. The children's charity said it was "shocked and angry" at the findings. Head of online child safety policy Andy Burrows added the investigation had found "a toxic combination of risks" - source
According to recent filings with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Monster Energy has four pending trademark applications related to the nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and metaverse realms. The first trademark application consists of downloadable virtual goods comprised of, but not limited to, beverages, food, supplements, sports, gaming, music, and apparel. According to the filing, such downloadable multimedia assets will be "authenticated by NFTs." Also included in the application are computer programs facilitating blockchain data interactions - source
A real estate startup has rolled out a service that allows homeowners to part with a fraction of their equity via fractionalized NFT sales. Vesta Equity tapped the Algorand blockchain for its NFT (non-fungible token) marketplace, which it contends is the first peer-to-peer exchange that allows homeowners to leverage and sell a slice of equity with digital collectibles. The fractionalized NFTs — which do not confer residential rights — are packaged as a security and registered as such with the Securities and Exchange Commission - source
Crypto and nonfungible token (NFT) ecosystem analytics firm BitsCrunch has secured $3.6 million in a funding round led by Animoca Brands, Coinbase Ventures, Crypto.com Capital, and others. BitsCrunch uses AI-based analytical tools to determine the fair price of NFTs, identify wash trading warnings, and determine whether an NFT is a copy or forgery of the genuine asset. The company is based in Germany and India. The firm believes that investors in the continually growing space need better access to data that will protect them from fakes and getting fooled by ingenuine trading volume - source
Major Japanese e-commerce firm Rakuten has announced the launch of its own nonfungible token (NFT) trading platform dubbed Rakuten NFT which will include a large number of NFTs in Japanese animation, music, TV, news, etc., and will first sell Ultraman animation-themed NFTs - source
The NFT-to-movie pipeline is spinning up, and another notable NFT project is set to make the leap from the blockchain to the big screen. Marvel film producer Ari Arad’s Arad Productions yesterday announced plans to turn artist Ben Mauro’s Ethereum NFT comic book project Huxley into a feature film. Huxley is a science-fiction tale spread across six digital issues sold as Ethereum NFTs - source
Lana Rhoades Deletes Twitter Account After Allegedly 'Rug Pulling' Her NFT Project. The adult film star now says she wants “nothing to do” with NFTs. Rhoades’ NFTs now have a current floor price on OpenSea of 0.01 ETH ($26), which is dramatically below their original mint price of 0.1 ETH ($261) - source
According to Nansen, RELI3F NFT mint once raised the Ethereum GAS fee by more than 1.3k gwei. The first collection series is to support the people of Ukraine. The official tweet said that more than a million dollars were raised in 30 seconds through the sale of NFTs - source
Defi:
The Fantom-based DEX Solidly launched by Andre Cronjie has grown rapidly in recent days. The current liquidity exceeds 410m, and the transaction volume in the past 24h has exceeded 100m. Among them, the USDC-MIM trading pair has a liquidity of 229m - source
Yearn Finance announced that several previously merged projects will operate independently in the future, including Yearn Finance, SushiSwap, C.R.E.A.M. Finance, Akropolis, Pickle Finance, Iron Bank - source
DAOs:
Political activist and critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Nadya Tolokonnikova, better known as a founding member of "conceptual protest art group" Pussy Riot, announced Ukraine DAO via Twitter today, alongside Trippy Labs and members of PleasrDAO. The drop will consist of 10,000 Ukrainian flag NFTs minted on Ethereum, with all proceeds benefiting the Return Alive Foundation and NGO Proliska - source
Raises:
Slope Finance, the startup behind a digital wallet for the Solana blockchain, has closed an $8 million Series A funding round co-led by Solana Ventures and Jump Crypto. Other backers included Sequoia China, Genesis Trading, CMS Holdings, Spark Digital, Circle Ventures, Huobi and others. Slope offers a cross-platform wallet with access to Solana Pay, decentralized finance (DeFi) engagement, visualized non-fungible token (NFT) management and token swaps, or the transfer of tokens from one blockchain to another. Slope Finance competes with Solana mobile wallets like Phantom and Solitare Solflare. Last month, Phantom raised $109 million at a $1.2 billion valuation - source
Ucollex, a Hong Kong-based non-fungible token (NFT) platform focused on art and pop culture collectibles, has closed a $10 million Series A funding round led by Animoca Brands and the MCP IPX One Fund from Japanese investment firm MCP Asset Management. The new capital will be used to scale operations, including platform and blockchain tech development and will also help drive marketing efforts related to significant intellectual property (IP) partnerships, which will be announced soon - source
Ren Labs Raises $7.5M for ‘Catalog’ Cross-Chain Exchange. The popular blockchain bridge is looking to expand its services in 2022. Ren Labs, announced the fundraising with participation from Amber Group, Multicoin Capital, BlockTower Capital, Cumberland DRW, GBV Capital, Chiron, Fisher8 Capital, LedgerPrime, Bixin and PetRock Capital - source
Web3 gaming startup Fast Break Labs has closed a $6 million seed funding round to launch an NFT-based fantasy basketball game dubbed the “Virtual Basketball Association” (VBA). The game is slated to launch via an early alpha for 2,000 users who will have a chance to collect fictional player NFTs and build teams for season 0. Users will be able to earn rewards from the game via player vs. player simulated team battles - source
LiveOne, Cere Network and Polygon partner to launch an NFT Platform and a utility token for Music Entertainment/ Metaverse and GamifyOne Offerings - source
Sam Cassatt, former chief strategy officer at ConsenSys, had been working under the radar since 2020 for his web3 infrastructure startup Aligned. The company has now emerged from stealth with $34 million in seed funding. While Aligned currently offers computing hardware for mining cryptocurrencies such as ether (ETH) and other activities, it eventually hopes to become the Amazon Web Services for web3. Several investors backed the funding, including GSR, Altium Capital, Cavalry Fund, Ninja4 and others - source
Blockchain Infrastructure Provider InfStones Closes $33M Series B. The company plans to triple its headcount in the next year and double its supported protocols. InfStones supports nodes on over 50 chains including Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Polkadot, Cardano and Chainlink. The platform’s customers include Binance, Dune Analytics, Polygon, Circle and Compound - source
ArDrive, a blockchain-based permanent storage application, has raised a tidy $17.2 million in a seed round of 13 investors led by Arweave Team, Blockchain Capital, and Sino Global Capital. ArDrive currently houses over 6 million files from across the globe, including text, articles, photos and videos - source
Some of the recent private fundraising events among blockchain startups you should know about. Feb 2022 - source
Data:
Coinbase: Following the merge of Ethereum's mainnet with the Beacon Chain expected around June of this year, ETH staking yields increase as rewards will incorporate net transaction (ex-base) fees currently paid to miners. Staking yields could rise from 4.3-5.4%APR to 9-12%APR - source
Coinbase disclosed its financial report, with revenue of $2.5 billion in the Q4, and net profit of $840m. Coinbase’s full-year 2021 revenue is $7.839 billion and net profit is $3.624 billion. Coinbase’s full-year trading volume was $1.67 trillion - source
According to Watch the Burn data, since EIP-1559 took effect, more than 1.9 million ETHs have been destroyed, with a cumulative value of more than $5 billion, with a net reduction rate of 69.65% - source
New Listings:
ERTHA (ERTHA) to be listed on Bybit. Trading will start on February 25th, 10:00 AM UTC under ERTHA/USDT trading pair. Moreover, ERTHA and Bybit will hold a contest with a prize pool worth $260,000 ERTHA - source
None of this is finanshy advice.