This week I decided to highlight the raises from the week first. I track these every week and I find it interesting to see what investments are currently being made under these market conditions. Can’t help but pay attention to where money is flowing. The days of regular hundred million dollar raises are mostly gone now but there is still a trickle of capital flowing in.
Privacy-focused web3 firm Aztec Network raised $100M - @aztecnetwork
Nillion, a web3 startup aiming to build a non-blockchain decentralized network raised $20M- @nillionnetwork
Blocknative, a Web3 infrastructure company, raised $15M - @blocknative
Evertas, a cryptocurrency insurance firm, raised $14M - @EvertasRisk
SudoRandom Labs, the main developer of the NFT AMM SudoSwap, raised $12.5M - @sudoswap
Digital Entertainment Asset, operator of the PlayMining NFT gaming platform, raised $10M - @PlayMining_SG
EXEVerse Labs, an Asia-based metaverse, Web3 NFT company, raised $7.5M - @EXEVerseIO
Bonfire, which helps creators create unique digital spaces for their community raised $6.2M - @bonfire_tweets
Web3 c02-neutral music marketplace, Public Pressure, built on Polkadot, raised $6M - @jointhepressure
Decentralized sports prediction market Frontrunner raised $4.75M - @frontrunnerxyz
Breez, a Lightning solution service provider, raised $4.5M - @Breez_Tech
Spaceport, a web3 intellectual property protocol, raised $3.6M - @spaceportxyz
Decent, an NFT infrastructure protocol that helps artists monetize their work, raised $3.5M - @decentxyz
Liquid Access, a provider of a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform raised $3M - @liquidaccess_
Anima, creator of “the first on-chain AR” digital assets Onlybots, raised $3M - @onlydotbot
NFT gaming platform BalthazarDao's raised $2M at a $60M valuation - @BalthazarDao
Nametag, creators of new standard for end-user identity verification with web3, raised $2M - @nametagtweets
MetaVersusWorld, a web3 hyper-realistic and interactive, persistent virtual multiverse, raised $2M - @MetaversusWorld
Finterest, bitcoin lending protocol on ICP raised $1.5M - @FinterestICP
Mars Labs $1M strategic partnership with DWF Labs - @Mars_Labs
This week, I write out my thoughts on the Fed/Macro outlook in 2023 here. tl;dr: marketwide risk-on won’t return until at minimum sometime next year. Fed needs time to do its thing with inflation:
https://www.m6labs.co/p/weekly-alpha-leak-2023-outlook-looking
- 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. The following is a look at the crypto landscape during the past week covering various sectors. Use these events like clues - let it tell you the larger overarching story of crypto -
Data:
Bitcoin:
This is an interesting way to visualize how risk has performed over the last year. Dollar was king starting in about April. Since then, gold, the Dow Jones, S&P 500, Nasdaq tech stocks held up better than bitcoin despite being down themselves. Tech stocks were second worst.
Looking at the lower time frames around the time of the FTX collapse. Bitcoin and crypto slid down while the Dow held up best followed by the S&P 500, gold and Nasdaq tech stocks. Dollar has slowly been coming down since October. Bitcoin and everything else seems like it got cucked by the recent FOMC.
Ethereum:
ETH has similar behavior
The difference comes in how it’s been holding up on the lower time frames which looks much better (until just recently). Lots of people had hopes for a Santa rally that now seems like it might not come.
Crypto Market Cap:
Dipping down to the lower $800B region. Reaching levels we haven’t been at since January 2021.
Fundraising:
Fundraises have slowly been dwindling all year. Out of the raises that have been made, web3 and NFTs have held up best.
I find this especially eye opening. In April, monthly fundraising topped $6.6B and then November brought in just $840M
DefiLlama DeFi TVL:
Jeez. Looking like DeFi TVL pushing to fall below $40B. We haven’t been that low since February 2021.
Token Terminal Revenue:
Looking at who’s brought in the most fees in the past month: Ethereum, OpenSea, Uniswap, Lido Finance, BSC. Curious little observation, Art Gobblers brought in more fees in the past month than Polygon did. Guess all those partnerships Polygon is making isn’t paying off yet.
Revenue is different from fees and the protocols that captured the most revenue over the past month are: Ethereum, OpenSea, dYdX, GMX and PancakeSwap. Polygon coming in last.
Who’s got the largest treasury over the past year? Uniswap, BitDAO, ENS, Axie Infinity, Tokemak. Curious to see Axie ranked so high.
Daily Active Users:
Over the past month, most daily active users have been on BSC, Polygon, Ethereum, Solana and Arbitrum. Arbitrum makes sense since lot’s of people have most likely been farming the airdrop. BSC has always been bot city. Polygon is curious. Reddit NFT minters plus the recent Trump NFTs on Polygon? As we saw earlier, none of this is translating to fees or revenue - you still end up paying ETH for fees whenever you’re on Polygon instead of paying in Matic.
Developers: (30D)
Who’s got active developers working to build cool shit? Top: Ethereum, Solana, Cardano, Kusama, Polkadot. So Filecoin and Flow have more developers than Polygon?? Silly silly.
From: Nansen, DexScreener, CoinMarketCap, CoinGecko, DefiLlama, DappRadar, CryptoSlam, TokenTerminal, Tradingview, Dune
Crypto News:
Monday:
Do Kwon, who is wanted internationally in connection with the collapse of the Terra ecosystem, is said to have moved to Serbia through Dubai
The Block CEO Michael McCaffrey resigned after failing to disclose a series of loans from Alameda Research. He was allegedly the only person with knowledge of the funding at the company
Grayscale Investments said the SEC has filed its first legal brief in the lawsuit the crypto asset manager filed over the rejection of its application for a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund. The SEC argued its rejection was “reasonable, reasonably explained, supported by substantial evidence.”
The crypto community is reporting a vast reduction in the number of bots responding to their posts as Elon Musk announcing clamp down on scammers and bot accounts
Cathie Wood's Ark Investment Management bought 78,982 shares in Coinbase (COIN) - brings holdings to 5.7M COIN shares
Crypto trading firm 3Commas denied its employees' stole user's API keys, claims fake screenshots are circulating on social media and urging affected users to file police reports to stop the perpetrators from stealing their funds
Bermuda-based Jewel Bank is issuing a fully-backed stablecoin called Jewel USD (JUSD) that can be accessed through the Polygon network
Bitcoin Group to buy German bank Bankhaus von der Heydt for more than $15M
Symbiont.io, which almost a decade ago joined the rush of startups trying to bring crypto's underlying blockchain technology into conventional finance, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Dec. 1
Asian $70M VC fund Sora Ventures is moving to Taipei in Taiwan in favor of a more crypto-friendly environment
Tuesday:
The Royal Bahamas Police Force arrested FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried after U.S. authorities filed criminal charges, and The Bahamas intends to extradite him. SEC announces 8 charges. He denied being part of a secret group titled “Wirefraud” just hours before his arrest by the Bahamian authorities
U.S. CPI: 7.1% YoY, 0.1% MoM Forecasted: 7.3% YoY, 0.3% MoM. US CPI Core: 6.0% YoY, 0.2% MoM Forecasted: 6.1% YoY, 0.3% MoM
Tether coordinating with Binance to perform a chain swap, converting 3B USDT from Tron to Ethereum ERC20 in response to large outflow of withdrawals
Tether intends to reduce secured loans in its reserves to zero in 2023
Bitcoin miner Argo is looking to sell assets and get a loan as it seeks to avoid bankruptcy and after it accidentally published a document implying it would file for Chapter 11
Discord's new Linked Roles include support for Solana – servers with the Solana app installed can prompt users to link and authenticate with their Solana wallet
MetaMask Institutional, Cobo and Gnosis DAO team up for soulbound token project
Investment fund manager M31 Capital has chosen Anchorage Digital Bank to custody the $100M Web3 Opportunity Fund it launched in October
Avalanche releases Core Mobile, a mobile version of its flagship non-custodial multichain wallet
Terra validators voted to expand its security measures with a $900,000 grant to SCV Security to identify and monitor vulnerabilities, risks and potential threats to the second version of the protocol
Algorand was selected to be the blockchain to support a digital guarantees platform in Italy - expected to become operational in early 2023
FC Barcelona, one of the biggest soccer clubs in the world, announced a new global partnership agreement with biggest European crypto exchange WhiteBIT
Axelar Network integrates with Secret Network to offer private cross-chain messaging and NFT transfers
Wednesday:
A judge in the Bahamas denied SBF’s request for bail, calling the former billionaire a flight risk and remanded to the country's department of corrections until his extradition hearing set for February 8, 2023
Apple plans to allow the installation of iOS apps from external sources due to impending EU regulations that could make it easier for developers to build apps around NFTs and broaden the ability to make crypto payments
Binance CEO CZ warned colleagues that the proverbial crypto winter isn’t over, and the months ahead won’t be easy
The New York-based asset manager Wisdom tree has launched nine new blockchain-enabled funds effective with the U.S. SEC and come ahead of WisdomTrees digital wallet, slated to launch in the first quarter of 2023
13 years since Satoshi Nakamoto was last active on Bitcointalk
CSOP Asset Management has received approval to list its Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange by Dec. 16
Thursday:
MetaMask onramp partnership with PayPal allows accounts to purchase ETH and send to connected web3 wallets
Canadian entrepreneur and “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary claims Binance caused the collapse of FTX on purpose
Digital asset custodian BitGo refused to allow Alameda Research to unwind $50M worth of wrapped bitcoin days before bankruptcy
Wintermute and Venture Cap Octopus given seats on key FTX Creditor Committee which will play a key role in representing the issues of the million or so potentially owed money
Crypto trading firm QCP Capital has at least $97M stuck on FTX
The GAM3 Awards - December 15th, 3PM UTC - recognizing this year’s best web3 games
Mithril, a blockchain social media project, says it deposited 200,000 BNB tokens to Binance to list its MITH token in 2018 and now wants a refund after Binance delisted the token
Microsoft updated its policy terms to specify it will not allow cryptocurrency mining on its online services without prior approval - in line with other tech giants like Google, which prohibits crypto mining on its cloud platform without approval
Web3 domain provider Unstoppable Domains will integrate in early 2023 with Etherscan and Polygonscan
Web3 browser Opera announced Web3 Guard - a suite of browser security features that promises to protect users against malicious DApps, seed phrase phishing attacks and malicious actors
Crypto lender Amber Group will cancel performance-based bonuses in 2022 to help survive the crypto winter meanwhile they acquired Singapore crypto exchange Sparrow
DeFi, dApp developer Core Business Holdings goes public in the US through ARAX acquisition. ARAX is currently investing in WEB3 projects, as well as future WEB4 projects
B. Riley Financial, one of Core Scientific's largest creditors, proposing a $72M financing package to extend Core Scientific’s runway by more than two years and help stave off bankruptcy
Friday:
Auditor Mazars suspended all services including proof of reserves for exchanges, and its clients include Binance KuCoin Crypto.com and others due to concerns regarding the way these reports are understood by the public. Armanino also ending its crypto audit practice and dropping clients
Bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital estimated its assets to be worth around $1B in July with $3B in liabilities
Jack Dorsey donated 14 BTC, worth about $245,000, to further fund development of decentralized social network Nostr (short for Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays)
ENS launched an official merch store
Mining firm Bitfarm, which has locations across the Americas, sold a property in de la Pointe, Quebec for a net profit of $3.6M
Economic/Government/Regulatory:
Monday:
The U.S. Justice Department is continuing to consider charging Binance for possible money laundering and criminal sanctions violations
California class-action suit against almost 40 people and companies, including Yuga Labs and MoonPay, claims they used celebrities to misleadingly promote and sell its NFTs. Celebrities such as Justin Beiber, Paris Hilton, Jimmy Fallon and Madonna, among others, were named as plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit
The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Bloomberg filed a lawsuit seeking to unseal the creditor’s names of FTX
Former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison hired a former crypto regulator, Stephanie Avakian, at the U.S. SEC to represent her in an ongoing federal probe
Cryptocurrency payments app MoonPay secured registration with the U.K.'s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), signifying compliance with local money laundering rules
Chinese authorities in Inner Mongolia arrested 63 people in association with a scheme that allegedly laundered 12B yuan ($1.7B)
The Bank of England is seeking a proof of concept for a sample wallet for a Central Bank digital currency and will take applications through Dec. 23
Tuesday:
A federal judge ordered the Commodities Future Trading Commission to serve founders Tom Bean and Kyle Kistner as part of an ongoing lawsuit against Ooki DAO
An affiliate of the Chinese tech giant Alibaba has claimed that it will allow customers to pay with the digital yuan on its Taobao e-commerce platform
Brazil is set to launch a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in 2024
Iris Energy (IREN), the bitcoin miner that last month said some of its mining equipment isn't producing enough cash to meet its financing obligations, was hit by a class action suit
Wednesday:
US Senators Warren, Marshall introduce Digital Assets Anti-Money Laundering Bill which would bring KYC rules to crypto participants such as wallet providers and miners
CFTC declares ETH as a commodity again in court filing countering previous claims that staked coins are securities according to the Howey Test
Influencers known on Twitter as Zack Morris and PJ Matlock, the founders of Atlas Trading and several alleged co-conspirators have been accused of stock manipulation by the U.S. SEC. and earning about $100M in roughly three years of engaging in a fraudulent scheme to scam investors
Lawyers for bankrupt lender Celsius are seeking to claw back $7.7M from the estate of rival Voyager, as judges wrangle over the exact legal status of Celsius’ assets
Nasdaq warns Canadian Bitcoin mining firm Bitfarms about share price deficiency and requirement to stay listed on the exchange
Australia is set to make sweeping changes to financial services laws that will tighten safety net and targets crypto and clearing reforms in finance overhaul
Data shows Indians have lost interest in trading on local crypto exchanges since the government began imposing taxes on profits and transactions
Thursday:
The U.S. Department of Justice filed charges against nine individuals for operating two crypto Ponzi schemes, IcomTech and Forcount, also known as Weltsys
The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) issued digital asset guidance to state-regulated banks laying out what information financial institutions must submit before getting approval to engage in virtual currency-related activities
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will utilize Stellar Blockchain to send USDC stablecoins o Ukrainians
A central bank digital currency is a legislative priority for the European Union in the coming two years
Japan moves closer to easing tax on corporate crypto holdings. Japanese crypto issuers are required to pay a set 30% corporate tax rate on their holdings, even if they haven’t realized a profit through a sale
G20 economic leaders aim to develop an agreement on policy for crypto assets to inform global regulation at a meeting with finance and central bank deputies in Bengaluru, India
Friday:
A class action lawsuit against Silvergate Bank, Silvergate Capital Corporation, and Silvergate CEO Alan Lane allege the defendants directly aided and abetted FTX’s fraudulent activities
Sweden Central Bank preparing for e-krona CBDC
Exchange News:
Monday:
Credit investment firms are looking to buy claims from FTX’s customers who could otherwise wait years to see any money. Opting to collect money now means settling for massive losses, with claims selling for cents on the dollar
Institutional crypto trading platform FalconX has 18% of its "unencumbered cash equivalents" locked on FTX
Bybit releases Merkle Tree-verified proof of reserves
Tuesday:
FTX CEO details wrongdoings of SBF including commingling customer assets, relationship between FTX.US and FTX and Alameda. Confirms SBF and FTX acted fraudulently
SBF contemplated closing Alameda Research in September, according to charges filed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and wrote announcement drafts
FTX employees did invoicing and expenses over Slack and used QuickBooks, consumer-level tax software, to handle its accounting
Binance CEO CZ addressed major USDC outflows with some $1.6B withdrawn over the past 24 hours on the Ethereum network alone
FTX lawyers laid out evidence and allegations that SBF, Bahamian attorneys, and the Bahamian government are in violation of U.S. bankruptcy law preventing selective payments to creditors
U.S.-based customers of Binance are now able to use Binance Pay to send money on their mobile app
Native USDC on Avalanche is now integrated on Coinbase
Canada’s financial watchdog is enforcing stricter requirements for crypto firms following the collapse of FTX including a ban on margin and leverage trading
Wednesday:
Binance USDC withdrawals are back online
FTX previously stored private keys without encryption and Alameda Research had a secret speed advantage when executing orders according to the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Gemini appears to have suffered a data breach on or before Dec. 13 with 5.7M users' emails, account numbers, and partial phone numbers allegedly leaked
Robinhood Crypto chooses Avalanche as its first blockchain partner for learn-and-earn campaign, giving users an opportunity to earn $AVAX while exploring Avalanche
Coinbase’s prime broker platform, Coinbase Prime, received two System and Organization Control (SOC) attestation reports that verify that an organization follows industry best practices from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA)
Thursday:
In a Nov. 9 call with Bahamian regulators, FTX Digital Markets co-CEO Ryan Salame told Bahamas Securities Commission Executive Director Christina R. Rolle that client assets possibly held by FTX were transferred to Alameda Research to cover the hedge fund's financial losses
Binance Futures integrated with TradingView - will allow Binance users to trade USDⓈ-Margined futures perpetual and delivery contracts directly within TradingView’s browser and desktop apps
Coinbase launched a new asset recovery tool to help customers recover more than 4,000 unsupported ERC-20 tokens sent to its ledger
Binance may significantly reduce this year’s year-end bonuses
Paradigm, the crypto derivatives trading platform not to be confused with the crypto investment firm with the same name, cut salaries company-wide by 15 percent due to the contagion stemming from FTX
Coinbase has added Axelar (AXL) to its roadmap
Binance will delist MITH, TRIBE, REP and BTCST
Friday:
New York-based investment bank Jefferies Financial Group estimates FTX creditors could get as much as 40% of their money. However, that recovery rate would likely be lower once bankruptcy administrators have taken their fees
FTX wants to sell off parts of its global business it says are solvent and in good standing with regulators, before they lose more value: derivatives platform LedgerX, stock trading service Embed, as well as FTX Japan and FTX Europe
European crypto exchange Bitvavo owed up to $300M by Genesis. Gemini and Bitvavo have formed a creditors’ committee
Binance chose not to refund the deposit of 200,000 BNB to Mithril after delisting their token
Binance extends BUSD Zero maker fee & zero trading fee promotion for BUSD/USDT stablecoin pair
The Dutch central bank has issued a warning to cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin for operating without a registration in the Netherlands
Crypto.com has obtained a Payment Institution License from the Central Bank of Brazil
DeFi:
Monday:
Lodestar Finance, a lending platform on Arbitrum, was attacked and exploited for about $6.5M by manipulating the exchange rate of the plvGLP token. Copied Mango Markets attacker's methods
Uniswap fee switch governance voting begins
The Tron network's algorithmic stablecoin USDD fell under $0.97 - lowest since June
0xPlasma Labs proposal to deploy Uniswap v3 to BNB Chain, from which additional $1B of TVL and 1-2M new users can be obtained
Uniswap proposal aims to reduce friction in governance by reframing the steps that bring proposals to votes and more time for voters to digest governance proposals, while raising the bar for them to pass
SushiSwap lost $30M in the past 12 months on incentives for liquidity providers
0xngmi forked RPC/Metamask to prevent privacy leaks
The ENS DAO voting to choose stewards for three working groups who will oversee the activities of these sub-groups within the DAO
PSA to Solana stakers: The validator you stake with could be secretly rugging your staking rewards
Ledger debut browser extension – Ledger Connect. Starting in early 2023, Ledger customers will be able to use their hardware wallets to connect with Web3 apps
Active bug in one of Saddle Finance's contracts. Currently, at least $566k worth of funds on Arbitrum are vulnerable
Tuesday:
Chainlink whale ‘Oldwhite’ used more than 150 wallets to avoid staking limits and staked over 1 million LINK tokens
Yearn now on Ledger - get the best risk-adjusted yields in DeFi, directly from your hardware wallet
MakerDAO to execute a bundle of eight governance actions including pay for delegates, raising the DAI interest rate and offboarding renBTC as collateral for DAI
Wednesday:
Maple Finance released version 2.0 a week after a $36M default on the platform that aims to update focuses on diversifying borrowers and improving risk management parameters
SushiSwap Head Chef discloses $5.2M budget for DAO operation in 2023
DeFillama update allows checking whether money is leaving or entering CEXs and how much
Paxos is the sole issuer of BUSD, the US dollar-backed stablecoin regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) on Ethereum
Nimbus platform on BSC exploited on December 14 for 278 BNB
Thursday:
Curve Finance will deploy on zkSync’s mainnet in 2023 - first time Curve will be deployed a ZK-rollup
Trust Wallet adds in-app cross-chain swaps functionality with THORChain integration for BTC, ETH, BNB Bep 2 and BUSD Bep 2
ENS DAO finished voting on stewards for three working groups: Meta-Governance, ENS ecosystem, and the Public Goods - terms on Jan. 1, 2023 with six-month terms
MakerDAO and GnosisDAO join forces to launch the DAO-to-DAO strategic alliance
Friday:
Solana-based exchange Raydium $2M exploit
Ren DAO is considering the minting of new tokens to raise capital after the collapse of Alameda Research left the project without access to its funds - could mint as many as 200M new tokens that could be worth $17M
Archblock, a core developer of unsecured lending protocol TrueFi, is working with Adapt3r, a subsidiary of alternative asset manager MJL Capital, to bring U.S.-regulated community banks to DeFi
NFTs/Gaming/Metaverse:
Monday:
Mirror improved NFT embeds - showcase PFPs, art and music in posts by adding the NFT contract and token ID
Tuesday:
Illuvium Labs has released a new private beta for "Illuvium: Overworld,” the second of six games the team has planned over the next two decades. A third title, Illuvium: Zero, could also have an alpha release before Christmas
Microsoft’s attempt to acquire Activision Blizzard - a move originally aimed toward building Metaverse initiatives - hit a roadblock after an intervention by the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
Metaverse builders LandVault plan to monetize metaverse experiences by minting them as NFTs. Matera will tokenize metaverse builds and turn them into a new asset class
More than 5 million NFTs have been minted through Reddit’s Collectible Avatars initiative
Morningstar Ventures launch of 37xDubai art gallery in Q1 2023 - immersive and interactive digital art gallery located in the Burj Daman Tower
Wednesday:
Gaming platform Forte partners with Venture Studio SuperLayer to expand beyond Web3 gaming and invested $5M, which will go towards backing incubated companies
Thursday:
Magic Eden Rewards launch will allow users to create a profile across all wallets and award users with “Magic Points” based on secondary trading transactions. Ranking system will reward users with unique benefits
Magic Eden now supports Polygon NFT minting and trading
Forbes partners with The Sandbox and enters the metaverse with an interactive multiplayer experience
Crypto.com DeFi Wallet now allows storing NFTs on Polygon
The Sandbox is hiring leading blockchain infrastructure security provider OpenZeppelin to audit smart contracts, monitor vulnerabilities and alert for potential threats to the metaverse
Yuga Labs public launch of bug bounty program
Bangalore International Airport Metaport: World’s 1st Airport Metaverse launches via Polygon’s help
Former US president Donald Trump unveils NFT trading card collection minted on Polygon. A Sweepstakes offers prizes like a 1-on-1 Zoom call or one hour of golf with Trump
Friday:
Chainlink offering NFT price feed oracle to expand DeFi usage
Coming soon: The Optimist NFT: a customizable profile picture that can represent user identity across the Optimism Ecosystem
The Sandbox strategic partnership with Wunderman Thompson will allow Wunderman Thompson clients to engage their communities in immersive decentralized entertainment experiences
Solana NFT project Infinity Labs sending a collection of NFTs from numerous Web3 projects breamed into orbit via the International Space Station
Warner Music Group partners with DressX - which creates digital fashion wearables both on and off the blockchain. Warner Music artists will be able to create and license digital wearables and merchandise for fans
Fundraises:
Monday:
Nillion, a web3 startup aiming to build a non-blockchain decentralized network, closed an oversubscribed round of more than $20M led by Distributed Global. Other investors include AU21, Big Brain Holdings, Chapter One, GSR, HashKey, OP Crypto and SALT Fund - @nillionnetwork
Evertas, a cryptocurrency insurance firm, raised a $14M Series A round led by Polychain Capital and also included SinoGlobal Capital, CMT Digital Ventures, Foundation Capital, Morgan Creek, Bloccelerate, network0, Matrixport, and HashKey - @EvertasRisk
Bitcoin miner TeraWulf (WULF) has raised around $10M of new capital to repay certain debts while also agreeing to purchase 8,200 new miners from Bitmain - @TeraWulfInc
EXEVerse Labs, an Asia-based NFT company, secured $7.5M in funding from Berkwood Capital to accelerate the growth of its metaverse & Web3 products - @EXEVerseIO
Liquid Access, a provider of a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform for organizations to create and manage Web3-enabled digital assets, raised $3M in seed funding led by Flintera - @liquidaccess_
NFT gaming platform BalthazarDao's latest Private Round Token Sale of $2M at a $60M valuation led by Hive Empire Capital - @BalthazarDao
Tuesday:
Dogami, a web3 game that enables players to adopt and raise virtual dogs, raised $7M in a seed extension round led by European venture capital firm XAnge - @Dogami
Sooho.io, a provider of DeFi services, raised $4.5M in Series A+ funding round to help forge links between separate blockchains in South Korea led by Woori Technology Investment - @soohoio
MetaVersusWorld, a web3 hyper-realistic and interactive, persistent virtual multiverse, raised $2M in a seed funding round - @MetaversusWorld
Wednesday:
Startup Web3 c02-neutral music marketplace, Public Pressure, built on Polkadot, raised a $6M funding round led by digital asset manager Scytale and Ethereum co-founder and Polkadot founder Gavin Wood - @jointhepressure
Decentralized sports prediction market Frontrunner raised $4.75M in a seed round led by Susquehanna Private Equity Investments - @frontrunnerxyz
Breez, a Lightning solution service provider, raised $4.5M in an oversubscribed funding round led by ego death capital and Entrée Capital - @Breez_Tech
Spaceport, a web3 intellectual property protocol, raised $3.6 million in pre-seed round co-led by Arca, Decasonic and Crit Ventures - @spaceportxyz
Finterest, the first crypto lending protocol available on the Internet Computer (ICP) built to support native Bitcoin borrowing and lending, closed a $1.5M seed round that included Polychain Capital - @FinterestICP
Thursday:
SudoRandom Labs, the main developer of the NFT AMM SudoSwap, completed a private placement financing of $12.5M - @sudoswap
Digital Entertainment Asset (DEA), operator of the PlayMining NFT gaming platform, raised $10M from LA-based LDA Capital - @PlayMining_SG
Anima, creator of “the first on-chain AR” digital assets Onlybots, raised an additional $3M from Polygon Studios, Not Boring Capital, HashKey and others - @onlydotbot
Nametag, creators of the new standard for end-user identity verification with web3, raised a $2M seed round co-led by GSRV and OKX Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Alchemy Ventures - @nametagtweets
Friday:
Amber Group raised $300M in a Series C round that comes amid layoffs and refocusing led by Fenbushi Capital US
Privacy-focused web3 firm Aztec Network raised $100M in Series B funding led by a16z including A Capital, King River, Variant, SV Angel, Hash Key, Fenbushi and AVG - @aztecnetwork
Blocknative, a Web3 infrastructure company, raised $15M in a Series A-1 round led by Blockchain Capital, Foundry Group, Rho, IOSG Ventures, Robot Ventures, Fenbushi Capital, HackVC, Industry Ventures and other - @blocknative
Bonfire, which helps creators create unique digital spaces for their community, on their own custom web3-enabled site, raised $6.2M - @bonfire_tweets
Decent, an NFT infrastructure protocol that helps artists monetize their work, raised $3.5M in a seed funding round led by Archetype with Y Combinator, Circle Ventures, Palm Tree Crew Crypto and others also participating - @decentxyz
Mars Labs, the blockchain-based metaverse platform developer, announced a $1M strategic partnership with DWF Labs, a leading global web 3.0 investment company - @Mars_Labs
Early Stage Projects:
Monday:
Oasys mainnet launches, trading of OAS tokens begins on major CEXs
Layer Zero is now officially live on Metis Andromeda Mainnet
Thala documentation, covering Move Dollar ($MOD), Thala Swap
Introducing the Crypto Volatility Index $CVOL. A decentralized $VIX for crypto that lets you hedge against market volatility and impermanent loss
Hexagate is launching on Avalanche to help identify transaction risks when interacting with dApps
Filecoin - announcing the Hack FEVM Finalists - over 400 hackers built and showcased 117 projects with over $50,000 awarded
OmniBTC won the 34th Polkadot parachain auction
Galxe integrated with Aptos Network. Projects can now run campaigns for Aptos users and track chain info
Encode x StarkNet Autumn Hackathon: Prizewinners and Summary
Arbitrum Nitro node version v2.0.9. This release includes support for consensus v10, and adds support for running a validator without archive mode
Sphinx (prev. Stark X), a natively cross-chain order book DEX on StarkNet
Introducing: Inevitable Ethereum. A new wiki-style site dedicated to Ethereum, the World Computer
Tuesday:
zkSync 2.0 roadmap
ConsenSys launches zkEVM private beta testnet - over 150,000 signups so far
Fantom Gitcoin Grants Round 1 - 85+ projects, donations decide where grants will flow
DIMO Network, a decentralized automotive data insight network, launched its mainnet, which aims to give users more control over - and potentially earn rewards from - driving data
SynFutures, a DEX on the Polygon network, new V2 upgrade will allow for permissionless listing of futures trading pairs
Announcing the Quicksilver launch - a sovereign Cosmos-SDK zone providing liquid staking for the Interchain
LlamaNode RPCs are live - a reliable public good built for the decentralized world
Bridge Protection: now live on Socket. Powering Cross-Chain Innovation with Secure Bridging
Limit orders from CoW Protocol are officially live
Neon EVM’s Mainnet Launch delayed
Hooked Protocol’s Roadmap for 2023
Introducing the Moonbeam Accelerator - helps growth-stage projects on Moonbeam refine their ideas & reinforce skills for running successful Web3 startups
MOOAR Incubator Programme - exclusive mentorship programme from the Co-Founder of Find Satoshi Lab and the mastermind behind STEPN
Governance token and DAO for ParaSpace targeting a Q1 2023 launch
Wednesday:
Aura system has been upgraded - to continue earning rewards, all Aura LPs need to migrate from old reward pools in the next 7 days
Satsuma - a reliable subgraph & blockchain indexing platform for web3 engineering teams
Thursday:
Sui token allocation - community reserves 50%, early contributors 20%, investors 14%, and Mysten Labs treasury 10%, Community Access Program 6%
Introducing StarkNet's next step in decentralization - voting on protocol changes. Next is StarkNet's governance, which will span over the next few months
Introducing StarkNet's Builders Council - will be delegated 23.3% of the first phase voting power to the Builders Council members
Covalent, a Web3 data provider partnership with SKALE, a multichain Ethereum scaling solution offering a gas-free transaction solution
Friday:
Introducing Arabica & Mocha: two new data availability testnets for Celestia, bringing a faster erasure coding library that speeds up the encoder by 30x
BNB Chain’s European Innovation Incubator unveils winners
Web3 community platform Console launches beta to fix issues like spam and misinformation that plague other social media networks
PHI live on Polygon Mainnet - he first social world created from ENS & on-chain/off-chain wallet activities, enabling easy visualization of "On-Chain Identity"
Contango live - trade the first expirables in DeFi
Introducing Orbital - an upcoming AMM from the minds behind Dopex and PlutusDAO with the singular goal of becoming the premier native DEX on Arbitrum
Introducing Strike - a non-custodial, RFQ-based derivatives exchange that makes it effortless to construct option strategies
Masa Mainnet will go live on January 17th, 2023 - web3 identity and credit protocol
Announcing Namada public testnets - a proof-of-stake L1 for interchain asset-agnostic privacy
BlockPI Network has added support for the Scroll Pre-Alpha testnet
Research/Reads:
Arthur Hayes - PEMDAS - source
Glassnode - 2022 The Year On-chain - source
Inside Binance’s Fight Against Crypto Crime - source
FTX Contagion: Impact on DeFi - source
3Commas update on investigation into API keys and attacks on exchanges - source
Maple Finance's $54M of Sour Debt Shows Risks of Crypto Lending Without Collateral - source
GameFi Tokenomics Deep Dive - source
TreasureDAO Ecosystem Inventory: The Nintendo of the Crypto Metaverse? - source
Asset Risk Assessment: ApeUSD - A look into ApeCoin’s stablecoin ApeUSD - source
Features & Timeline Sketched for Shanghai Upgrade - source
Research on Real Yield Protocols - source
MEV's new chapter: Beyond Ethereum's borders - source
Understanding "Towards a Theory of MEV I" - source
Message traps in the Arbitrum bridge - source
Fully-homomorphic encryption, zero-knowledge proofs, and multiparty computation - source
ProbabilitySpace: A New AMM for Prediction Markets - source
SEC Charges Samuel Bankman-Fried with Defrauding Investors in Crypto Asset Trading Platform FTX - source
JPMorgan -The Dynamics and Demographics of U.S. Household Crypto-Asset Use - source
Crypto Products, But Increasingly Useful - source
Adoption of DeFi, ZK Tech, NFTs and More Will Continue to Increase in 2023 - source
Coinbase is proud to publish our fourth Transparency Report 2022 - source
CFTC Charges Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX Trading and Alameda with Fraud and Material Misrepresentations - source
Jack Dorsey - a native internet protocol for social media - source
FTX, Solana & Co., the Royalists in the Crypto World - source
Cross-chain Interoperability Is the Future of DeFi - source
Is Web3 Bad for the World? - source
Zero Knowledge - source
Lessons from the crypto winter - source
Andre Cronje - The decentralized CEO - source
FTX Investor Impact: Timeline of Realized Cryptocurrency Gains and Losses Shows FTX Hit Investor Wallets Less Than Previous Crises - source
How to Design a Compliant, Privacy-Preserving Fiat Stablecoin via Zero-Knowledge Proofs - source
Why is on-chain data analysis prone to misunderstanding? - source
Auditing Polygon zkEVM - source
2023 Predictions - source
The Five Memes that Defined DeFi in 2022 - source
The road ahead for the NFT marketplaces - source
Twitter:
More Sam/CZ drama - source
SBF denies taking down and hunting 3AC - source
CPI and FOMC together this week for the first time in a while - source
Binance’s “proof of reserve” report doesn’t address effectiveness of internal financial controls - source
1.1 billion DCG-Genesis promissory note explained and implications - source
We're in the middle of $BTC mining capitulation - source
NFTs could make a lot of sense as affiliate links - source
2023 will be a bloodbath for crypto startup - source
CZ intervening during unusual market moves - source
CZ hits back at Kevin O'leary - source
Sushi CEO on improvements coming - source
Use ChatGPT to help query DEX data on Dune with Spark SQL language - source
Solana NFT drama summarized - source
FTX CEO John Ray testifies about SBF and wrongdoing - source
Cumberland sees better days for crypto in 2023 - source
Modular blockchains could be the key to a whole new world of crypto - source
Lawsuit against Compound alleging that COMP is an unregistered security - source
SBF sent to the Bahamas Department of Correction till Feb. 8 - source
Apple app store changes could be big for crypto - source
Draft of the testimony SBF was scheduled to present before Congress
Binance withdrawals stabilized - not even top 5 highest withdrawals ever processed - source
Current situation and future of SOL after FTX collapse - source
60 NEW Layer 0/1/2 Blockchains - source
Story of ex-FTX employee - source
Project that hasn't tweeted in 2 years and has no functioning webpage asks Binance for it's 200,000 $BNB deposit back - source
ZachXBT - exposes Fiverr/NFT project grift - source
ConsenSys zkEVM - source
Decentralized identity & reputation - source
69 crypto theses/thoughts for 2023 - source
Things a16z is excited for in crypto - source
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