tl;dr:
News: Elon Musk Twitter deal, a16z's fund lost 40% in first half of 2022, Pantera down 71%, Meta’s Reality Labs lost $3.7B in Q3, Binance launched native oracle service on BNB Chain, Bitcoin miner Core Scientific may seek bankruptcy protection, Google cloud-based node engine service for ETH devs, Circle partnered with Axelar for USDC cross-chain applications, Metavertu Web3 smartphone, Mastercard partnership with BitOasis for MENA region crypto cards, CashApp adds support for Bitcoin Lightning Network, Visa and Western Union crypto trademarks
Data: Total Crypto Market Cap just shy of $1B, DeFi TVL ~ $54B, Nansen Smart Money did not follow the recent crypto pump - seems they sold into the pump. Stablecoins on exchanges going down, Green week for Top Protocols by DeFi TVL, Top Blockchains by TVL Spotlight: Algorand TVL near ATH ~ $300M, Optimism TVL near ATH ~ $975B. Arbitrum near lows ~ $1B, Tokemak explosion in revenue, In the past month: Ethereum: down 3% in NFT sales volume, Solana: down 43% in NFT sales volume
DeFi: Merit Circle to burn 20% of token supply, NEAR’s stablecoin USN shutting down, MakerDAO to custody $1.6B with Coinbase Prime, MakerDAO to break up into smaller MetaDAOs, BNB Chain $10M gas fee incentive, SushiSwap restructures to be managed by 3 organizations, PancakeSwap deploying on Aptos, Aave stETH earn strategy through Oasis.app, Compound to prevent users from being able to lend illiquid assets, Frax Finance liquid staking Frax Ether
NFT/Metaverse/Gaming: Apple to restrict apps from using NFTs to avoid 30% App Store fees, Reddit NFTs surge, X2Y2 blocks NFT aggregator Blur, LooksRare optional NFT creator royalties, Twitter users to buy/sell/display NFTs through tweets, Metaplex new NFT asset class enforces on-chain creator royalties, Azuki $2.5M auction for 8 Golden Skateboard NFTs, Otherside metaverse to launch in 2023, NFTrade integrates with Immutable X, Singapore court rules NFTs are property
Exchanges: FTX could launch its own stablecoin, FTX API keys connected to 3Commas exploited, Binance $500M commitment to Elon/Twitter deal, South Korean city deal with Crypto.com and Gate.io to grow blockchain ecosystem, Bitmex CEO departs, FTX lists Japanese Yen perpetual futures, Blockchain.com may raise money at a significant discount, Huobi to to delist HUSD and convert to USDT
Economic/Government/Regulatory: 63% of ETH block transactions compliant with OFAC sanctions, Judge denied a motion to dismiss the wire fraud charges against former OpenSea employee, Bithumb owner faces 8 years in prison on charges of $70M fraud, UK's next prime minister is crypto friendly, Tel Aviv Stock Exchange blockchain-based digital asset trading platform, Singapore proposed restricting leveraged crypto trading, Hong Kong plans to allow retail investors to trade crypto, Hong Kong/Japan/UAE/Turkey CBDC developments
This week I write a more abridged weekly newsletter here as well as write out some of my thoughts on the Reddit NFT hype from the week, rebranding attempts and how narratives change in crypto. Check it out:
- 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:
The big pump that everyone celebrated this week still looks like this when you zoom out. Bitcoin up ~7% but still looking fairly bottomed out. We’re holding above $20k now which is better than being under it but no considerable bid has come in.
Ethereum:
The Ethereum chart looks a lot more active - Up ~ 20% and had a much bigger move this week than Bitcoin. Also we still haven’t come close to revisiting the summer lows. ETH appeals to me a lot more than Bitcoin and the chart seems to agree. Interest in ETH is currently greater than Bitcoin
Crypto Market Cap:
Total crypto market cap sitting just shy of $1B. Total trading volume still unimpressive
Nansen Smart Money Token Inflow and Outflows:
Largest Smart Money Inflows this week: Despite the recent crypto pump this week, Smart Money did not meaningfully move into either Bitcoin or ETH. Biggest inflow this week was into stETH, Aave USDC and FTM and only sparse amounts
Largest Smart Money Outflows this week: What we saw instead was a move out of stables, WETH and WBTC. The move out of stables is interesting because that didn’t flow into other tokens and it seems that smart money sold WETH and WBTC into the most recent pump
Largest Smart Money Inflows this month: Monthly inflows are fairly light - mainly into DAI and stETH and other odd coins
Largest Smart Money Outflows this month: Outflows again outweigh inflows and are leaving stables, ETH and WBTC. Where are the stables flowing? Certainly not into the big boys
Stablecoins on Exchanges:
The amount of stablecoins on exchanges has been going down. You want to see this increasing if sustained buying were to be occurring.
Meanwhile the ETH on exchanges has sort of just stalled after dropping from that post-Merge spike.
Nansen Hot NFT Contracts:
Highest Volume NFT collections of the past week: LUSDBondNFT came out as the clear winner with over 9500ETH while other top collection volumes remain very low
DefiLlama DeFi TVL:
TVL holding above $50B but we continue ranging sideways with no interesting changes. There’s plenty of proposals happening and changes going on surrounding Aave, Compound, Maker, Sushi, Uniswap, etc etc (I track these in the DeFi section) but money is neither flowing in or flowing out of DeFi at the moment in large amounts
Top protocols by TVL:
Nice little green week with the rest of the crypto pump. Most of the top protocols saw some relief but big picture, total TVL is still flat
Next, taking a look at some of the protocols that benefited the most from the recent pump with a minimum of $1M TVL. Money was eager to flow somewhere when conditions started turning bullish. Gearbox and LUSD chickenbonds look interesting. We saw the LUSDBondNFT get high volume.
The top blockchains by TVL:
All the top blockchains saw money flow into their ecosystems this week, even if just slightly. Solana still down 25% on the month. Picking on a few:
Algorand TVL at ATH - ~$300M
Optimism TVL near ATH again ~ $975B
There’s lots of hype going around Arbitrum with people trying to farm the airdrop but TVL has been pretty stagnant since peaking last November. ~ $1B. Interesting that Optimism and Arbitrum both have similar TVL but have taken very different paths to get there
We do however see that Arbitrum daily txns have spiked but this is prob people farming the airdrop
Token Terminal Revenue:
Looking at the projects that generate the most protocol revenue. Tokemak wtf. up 36000%?? Let’s zoom in.
Here’s Tokemak price vs revenue since launch. Price went straight to Hades and now we see this crazy boom in revenue. Interdasting.
Tokemak TVL has cratered just like price but token holders can continuously gone up
CryptoSlam Blockchains by NFT Sales Volume (30D):
In the past month:
Ethereum: down 3% in NFT sales volume
Solana: down 43% in NFT sales volume. Ouch
Looking closer at graphical form for Solana, unique buyers has plummeted since Oct 11th and sales are flat lining after that small spike we saw in September. Solana season isn’t back
Looking at Ethereum while we’re at it. Unique buyers trending downwards and sales are dragging along the bottom of the pits of Tartarus
DappRadar Rankings by Users: (30D)
Looking at dApps that are getting the most usage in the past month. Hooked Protocol on BNB chain came out of nowhere and has been gaining in UAW and Transactions all month. Volume is however nonexistent.
We can also see Magic Eden has gained 48% in UAWs however zooming out, we can see that UAWs and volume is pretty low compared to earlier in the year but transactions have spiked.
DappRadar Rankings by Volume: (30D)
Sushiswap is interesting. Lot’s of recent developments going on around Sushi. Down 15% in UAWs
DappRadar NFT Marketplaces Volume: (30D) *excludes washtrading*
In the past month: despite there being a crypto pump, marketplaces
OpenSea: OpenSea data still bugged.
Magic Eden: Magic eden saw a 45% drop in volume despite an increase in traders
Comparing Opensea with X2Y2: Opensea volume is bottomed out and UAW and transactions are trending down
X2Y2 has low volume but UAWs and transactions are generally trending up and to the right
From: Nansen, DexScreener, CoinMarketCap, CoinGecko, DefiLlama, DappRadar, CryptoSlam, TokenTerminal, Tradingview, Dune
Crypto News:
Monday:
Circle partnered with Axelar focused on the use of USDC and cross-chain applications. Avalanche, Cosmos, Ethereum, Polygon, and Sui will be the first chains integrated with Axelar's General Message Passing (GMP)
Digital asset custody platform Fireblocks has launched its new payment engine for merchants with Checkout.com and Worldpay as pilot partners
Bitcoin miner, Core Scientific, claims to be losing approximately $53,000 per day to cover the increased electricity tariffs that Celsius refuses to pay
Crypto unicorn Anchorage launched a new full-stack API infrastructure service known as “build with Anchorage” - battle tested by several early partners such as AngelList, Series Financial and Oath Digital
Pension fund-backed Parataxis Digital Yield Fund targets $500M in assets in 2023
Bitcoin's mining difficulty rose roughly 3.4%, up from the 13% increase from earlier this month
Bitcoin hardware manufacturer Canaan is launching the Avalon Made A13 series with two new models with increase efficiency and computing power
Klaytn governance proposal submitted to the Klaytn Governance Council (GC) proposing a ⅓ reduction in block reward in order to optimize the level of $KLAY emission
Crust Network wins the 30th Polkadot Auction + Polkadot Ecosystem Weekly Digest - October 17th - 23rd
Tuesday:
Smartphone manufacturer Vertu revealed its latest device, Metavertu - a Web3 phone that can run its own blockchain node and turn photos and videos into NFTs with a single click
Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest made its first purchase of Coinbase stock since June this year, along with more Block and Robinhood shares
Klaytn Foundation Buyback Announcement - continued efforts to achieve an optimal and sustainable Klaytn ecosystem
Mastercard signed a partnership with BitOasis to offer cryptocurrency-linked cards for customers in the MENA region
Layer 2 Community Grants 2022. The Ethereum Foundation offers a pool of $750,000 in grants that will help scale the network while preserving decentralization and public goods
Sui Foundation announced the launch of a developer grant program, which will grant grants to eligible on-chain developers ranging from $10,000 to $100,000
Wednesday:
a16z's largest crypto fund loses 40% value in first half of 2022
Blockchain Interoperability Network Axelar will deliver cross-chain communications for Polygon’s Supernets
Binance launched its native oracle service to enable smart contracts to run on real-world inputs and outputs, starting with the BNB Chain ecosystem
BitPay to introduce USDC and ETH payments on Polygon network
$3.5M total has been stolen by phishing scammer known as Monkey Drainer according to ZachXBT
CashApp adds support for Bitcoin Lightning Network with a limit of $999 every seven days for BTC transactions on the Lightning Network
Filecoin Green, a Protocol Labs initiative designed to reduce the environmental impact of FIlecoin and make it verifiably sustainable, has spearheaded an initiative to power Web3 technology with verifiably clean energy
Amberdata, a company that provides blockchain and crypto data for institutions, has bought out Genesis Volatility, which provides analytics on crypto options
Western Union may be preparing to offer crypto-related services, based on trademark applications recently filed hinting at an asset and commodities exchange, insurance, and token
Thursday:
Meta’s Reality Labs business, the division in charge of producing metaverse-related technology, lost $3.7B during the third quarter. Follows losses of $2.9B and $2.8B in the first and second quarter
Credit reporting company Equifax, known for one of the largest data breaches in history, to partner with Oasis Labs to provide a privacy-focused KYC solution for Web3 companies
Core Scientific Inc., one of the world’s largest miners of Bitcoin, warned that it may run out of cash by the end of the year and could seek relief through bankruptcy protection
Blockchain market intelligence provider Glassnode acquired crypto tax and portfolio tracking platform Accointing.com
Blockchain technology firm ConsenSys will spend $2.4M annually to fund its newly launched MetaMask Grants DAO aimed at driving further development of the Web3 ecosystem
Crypto predictions site Polymarket predicts an overall 64% chance of Republicans winning both Senate and House and taking control of Congress
Google is launching a cloud-based node engine service for Ethereum developers and projects
Filecoin launched a new data delivery network called Saturn to help retrieve content for decentralized storage apps and make it cheaper to run Filecoin nodes and contribute storage to the network
Fantom has deployed an automated smart contract monitoring system called Watchdog, to strengthen the security of decentralized apps on its blockchain
Prometheum partners with Anchorage Digital on SEC-registered alternative trading system
Crypto investment platform Freeway said it will “take time” before the firm will resume partial or full trading, days after halting services. Token price had plummeted and project had removed the names and photos of employees from its website
Stone Ridge, a multi-billion-dollar asset manager, has launched a startup accelerator focused on the Bitcoin Lightning network
Friday:
Pantera Capital's early-stage token fund is down 71% this year but has still returned 372% to investors since 2017
Messaging service Telegram launched its marketplace for Telegram handles to auction off rare user handles
Visa filed 2 trademark applications claiming plans for: Managing Digital, Virtual, and Cryptocurrency transactions; Digital currency + Cryptocurrency wallets; NFTs + Virtual goods; Providing virtual environments and more
Tether, Holepunch, and Synonym launch Pear Credit, a P2P credit system
Warning: when searching for CoinMarketCap on Google, phishing sites with an “ad” tag show up in front of the actual website
Neobank Revolut will temporarily offer UK customers 1% cash back when using crypto to make everyday payments with their cards
Economic/Government/Regulatory:
Monday:
A judge has denied a motion to dismiss the wire fraud charges against former OpenSea employee Nathaniel Chastain
Troubled crypto lender Vauld has applied for another four months of protection against creditors
Rishi Sunak's coronation as the UK's next prime minister could mean that plans to make the country friendlier to crypto could be possible
The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE), Israel's sole public trading platform for equity and debt, is looking to set up a blockchain-based digital asset trading platform
Hong Kong unveils completed retail CBDC project that has a CBDC-backed stablecoin
Japan Credit Bureau (JCB), a Japanese analog to international payments systems like Visa or Mastercard, announced the start of its central bank digital currency (CBDC) infrastructure testing
Spain overtakes El Salvador to become third largest crypto ATM hub
Tuesday:
South Korean prosecutors are asking the court to sentence Lee Jung-hoon, the owner of South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb, to eight years in prison on charges of fraud worth about $70M
Australian regulators are suing BPS Financial (BPS) for alleged misleading statements about its crypto asset Qoin that claimed it was regulated
Wednesday:
UAE's central bank pilots cbank digital currencies transactions
Turkey to launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC) next year. The responsible institution is Turkey’s central bank, with the cooperation of the local Ministry of Finance and Scientific and Technological Research Institution
Singapore’s financial watchdog has proposed restrictions on the use of credit or leverage when trading cryptocurrencies
Thursday:
63% of all transaction blocks on the Ethereum blockchain are compliant with OFAC sanctions
Hong Kong's government plans to allow retail investors to trade crypto on locally licensed exchanges as part of a wider effort to position the city as a center for virtual asset service providers
A European Union DLT pilot program will allow market participants to use stablecoins for trades and settlements before the legal framework for crypto is enforced in at least two years
Crowdfunding platform StartEngine is acquiring rival platform SeedInvest from Circle, pending approval from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA)
Two million users in Nigeria and Kenya are set to be onboarded to a new cryptocurrency wallet called Mara, backed by Coinbase Ventures and Alameda Research
The National Bank of Kazakhstan has agreed to test Binance's blockchain network BNB Chain for potential integration into the country's central bank digital currency (CBDC)
Friday:
The Celo Foundation has laid off its entire government relations team. Government relations and lobbying spending from the crypto industry appears to be receding
Lawmakers in Costa Rica are working to make the Central American country a Bitcoin-friendly nation, with significantly lower taxes on crypto
Exchange News:
Monday:
FTX API keys connected to 3Commas confirmed to have been exploited. FTX will provide $6M in compensation to victims this one time but not setting a precedent if victims continue falling for phishing scams
FTX's political action committees are planning an ad campaign on the eve of the US midterm elections
Brokerage app Robinhood is hiring sanctions investigators for its finance crimes compliance unit
Robinhood now lists AAVE and XTZ
Spanish cryptocurrency platform Bit2Me has acquired software development studio Dekalabs
Tuesday:
Alexander Höptner is departing from his role as CEO of crypto exchange Bitmex. Stephan Lutz has been appointed as Interim CEO
Coinbase will list Axelar (WAXL)
Euler (EUL) Gets Listed on KuCoin
Wednesday:
Bybit has introduced its web3 wallet Bybit Wallet
South Korean city Busan has signed a business agreement with two international cryptocurrency exchanges, Crypto.com and Gate.io, to grow its blockchain ecosystem
FTX will list Japanese Yen (JPY) perpetual futures
Toncoin (TON) Gets Listed on KuCoin
Thursday:
FTX could launch its own stablecoin, CEO SBF said in an interview but would prefer launching a stablecoin via partnerships
Blockchain.com may raise money at a significant discount to previous valuation. Valued at $14B in a funding round earlier this year, but may only fetch $3B to $4B
Huobi Global to delist stablecoin HUSD and convert HUSD assets to USDT assets
Crypto exchange Blockchain.com introduced a Visa debit card available to U.S. residents with 1% cashback in crypto
Stocks and crypto investment platform eToro acquisition of Bullsheet, a portfolio management startup
Binance launches its Bahrain platform - binance.bh, a fully regulated platform by the Central Bank of Bahrain
Crypto trading firm PGI Global U.K. has been shut down after allegedly scamming would-be investors of around 612,425 pounds ($709,000) between July 2020 and February 2021
Friday:
Binance backed Elon Musk’s $44B acquisition with a $500M commitment to take a share of equity. Musk fired Twitter's current CEO, CFO and legal chief
Binance Will List Osmosis (OSMO) in the Innovation Zone
DeFi:
Monday:
Crypto investment platform Freeway announced a halt to services amid market volatility. Freeway claims to offer up to 43% annual rewards on "Superchargers" denominated in crypto and fiat currencies. Team list has been deleted and allegations of a rugpull exceeding $100M
QuickswapDEX Interest Bearing Market was attacked for ~ 200k on Polygon and plans to close lending markets
Layer2DAO multisig on Optimism exploited and drained of 49,950,000 L2DAO tokens
Tuesday:
PancakeSwap and the CAKE token will be deploying on Aptos
MakerDAO community approves proposal to place up to $1.6B in Coinbase's custody platform, Coinbase Prime, where it will earn a 1.5% reward
Community members of MakerDAO voted to move forward with founder Rune Christensen’s plan to overhaul how the protocol works and make it more decentralized by breaking up into smaller, allegedly more decentralized units called MetaDAOs
Aave has launched a Lido Staked Ethereum, or stETH, earn strategy through Oasis.app
NEAR Protocol’s stablecoin, USN, is being shut down after it began to exhibit risky characteristics similar to those observed with TerraUSD. The Near Foundation opened up a $40M fund to protect investors and help them cash out of USN with equal amounts of wrapped Tether (USDT.e)
Aave Proposal to deploy Aave v3 on zkSync v2.0 Testnet
Compound Finance has approved “proposal-131,” which will prevent users from being able to lend relatively illiquid assets on the protocol - 4 protocols: 0x (ZRX), Basic Attention Token (BAT), Maker (MKR), and Yearn Finance (YFI)
Ribbon Finance considering a second round of lending pools for its DeFi lending product Ribbon Lend - considering onboarding a new set of institutional borrowers
Struggling Bitcoin miners are flocking to Maple Finance’s $300M DeFi lending pool. A pipeline of 10 mining firms will make up the first cohort of borrowers, with some 25 on the waitlist
Vesta Finance - following recent efforts to improve borrowing experience, removed the 30 VST liquidation reserve - borrowers will be less penalized in case of liquidation and liquidators are not over-compensated anymore
Wednesday:
P2E gaming DAO Merit Circle has voted to burn nearly $170M worth of its native MC tokens with 99.7% voting in favor. 200M of Merit Circle's total supply of 1B tokens will be taken out of circulation
BNB Chain launches $10M gas fee incentive to support growth of web3 dapps
SushiSwap approves restructuring - the development of the DAO will be managed by three organizations, which would be based in Panama and the Cayman Islands
Range Bound Stability is the start of a new chapter called Olympus V3
Synthetix Perps V2 summary and updates
Integral SIZE Liquidity Farming Program for Arbitrum
Thursday:
Two Solana-based DeFi protocols, Tulip and UXD, have reopened after recovering tokens from Mango Markets following the $114M hack
Team Finance, a crypto token launchpad, suffered a $14.5M exploit in relation to a smart contract bug in its migration feature
Multi-chain crypto wallet UvToken hacked for 5,011 BNB tokens ($1.45M) and moved to Tornado Cash
Friday:
THORChain, a cross-chain platform for token swaps and bridging, halts its chain after identifying a bug with no loss of funds or solvency issues
Stablecoin issuer Frax Finance has entered the ether liquid staking war with a unique two-token model called Frax Ether
Solana DEX Serum is considering a proposal that will change the governance structure for the project
Redacted Cartel - Pirex Expert Mode is now live
UniLend has released its V2 on Ethereum Testnet
NFTs/Gaming/Metaverse:
Monday:
Otherside metaverse The Persistent World is expected to launch in 2023, and players will be able to access the beta game starting next year, similar to Web3 Roblox
Solana NFT standard maker Metaplex plans to launch a new NFT asset class that can enforce on-chain creator royalties
NFTrade integrates Immutable X: a gaming-focused ETH Layer 2
Azuki completed a $2.5M auction for eight Golden Skateboard NFTs which will be redeemable for physical golden skateboards setting record for eight most expensive skateboards ever sold
Tuesday:
Apple updated its App Store policy to restrict apps from using NFTs to incentivize users to purchase items or features to avoid 30% App Store fees. NFTs are allowed to exist within apps on the App Store but they can’t unlock additional features or content
Reddit NFTs - Polygon-based avatars trading volume hits all-time high - last week that over 3 million Polygon wallets created by users to collect the NFTs
Gaming blockchain Oasys has taken the final steps towards debuting its mainnet, with 21 initial validators. There will be three initial phases followed by a public token listing. Square Enix, Ubisoft and Sega among its initial node validators
Meta partnership with makeup brand L’Oréal and French business school HEC Paris backing a new startup acceleration program for creativity in the metaverse
The Singapore High Court has ruled that NFTs can be considered a form of property - the first injunction issued in Asia to protect an NFT
Web3 ticketing company YellowHeart is launching a metaverse music venue – a move it hopes will drive changes in how artists, teams and event organizers release tickets and engage with fans
Wednesday:
2.6M SAND will be distributed to LAND Owners on the Polygon network. Snapshot was taken on August 30th, 2022, 1pm UTC
Axie's AXS recent token unlock saw recipients send $5.7M worth to exchanges - possible sell pressure
The breakout adult animated series, The Gimmicks, is dropping Season 2 on Avalanche. Created by Toonstar, a pioneer Web3 animation studio
SEBA bank, a crypto-friendly bank based in Switzerland, added an NFT custody solution that gives customers the ability to hold well-known NFTs without managing private keys
Thursday:
NFT marketplace X2Y2 blocked NFT aggregator Blur for violating their Terms (by applying for 10+ keys to access their API). X2Y2 replied that when a marketplace has its own aggregator it creates a conflict of interest
LooksRare becomes latest NFT marketplace to switch to optional royalties for NFT creators, however will allocate 0.5% of trading fees to creators
PlayBoy's "Rabbitars" NFT collection will be integrated into The Sandbox metaverse for its first anniversary
Microsoft is seeking to adapt part of its software service stack to the metaverse
Japanese media giant GREE to build Web3 games and run nodes on Avalanche
The Norwegian government is opening a metaverse tax office in Decentraland to educate a younger audience about taxes related to DeFi and NFTs
Multichain NFT marketplace myNFT will showcase its first-ever physical NFT vending machine at this year’s NFT.London event scheduled for Nov. 2–4
Friday:
Social media platform Twitter will let users buy, sell, and display NFTs directly through tweets with an integration called NFT Tweet Tiles in partnership with four marketplaces - Magic Eden, Rarible, Dapper Labs, and Jump.trade
Art Blocks founder and Chromie Squiggle creator Erick Calderon has created a new NFT project called Friendship Bracelets - with an airdrop will be available to select Art Blocks NFT holders
Soccer organization Premier League soccer reportedly may sign a multi-year contract for approximately $34.7M per year with Sorare for digital collectible NFTs
Nissan partners with Animoca-backed Grease Monkey Games’ Torque Drift 2 by dropping first ever Nissan utility NFTs
McFarlane Toys, founded by famed comic book artist Todd McFarlane will release a new line of digital collectibles based on the popular Spawn series to be minted on Polygon and sold through the Rarible NFT Marketplace
Warning: A new exploit on the old Opensea contract is being used to steal your NFTs
Mexico’s first metaverse shopping mall will launch with over 80 brands but is expected to grow and host over 800 brands soon
Frozen food conglomerate McCain Foods wants young consumers to farm its metaverse potatoes in a new free-to-play game on Roblox
Fundraises:
Monday:
Precog Finance, a new decentralized ecosystem that automates arbitrage trading between cryptocurrency pairs and futures, received a $3.5M strategic investment from DWF Labs
Layer2 protocol Milkomeda closed a $3.1M funding round led by Archetype, with participation from Coinbase Ventures
ATTA, a Web3 OGC & PUGC content protocol, raised $2M
Web3 publishing platform Paragraph has raised $1.7M from investors such as Lemniscap, FTX Ventures and Binance Labs
Raze Finance, the first NFT minting platform for security NFTs, successfully completed their pre-seed round of $175k
High-end blockchain trading platform BitGoldEX won the A round of strategic investment to incubate leading web3.0 projects
Tuesday:
African cryptocurrency exchange Yellow Card concluded a $15M Series A financing round led by Valar Ventures, Third Price and Castle Island Ventures
BNB Chain, one of the world's most actively used blockchains by daily active users, has introduced a $10M fund to help projects with user acquisition and growth
The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) $5M Enterprise Fund investment in Wave, an African mobile money app which endeavors to make Africa the first cashless continent
Crypto-centred fund UpsideDAO $5M fundraising to invest in web3 projects approved by its community members
Synota, a startup that wants to bring energy payments to Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, has raised $3M in a seed round led by Ego Death Capital
Binance Labs led the pre-seed funding round for Ancilia, Inc. in its latest step toward fortifying the security of the Web3 ecosystem
Sealance Seed Funding Round - the world's first blockchain-based Trust Platform for cryptocurrencies and based on advanced mathematics, cryptography, and zero-knowledge proofs
Wednesday:
Yoom raised $15M from star-studded investor list - YOOM’s volumetric technology allows the creation of photorealistic digital content and experiences for the Metaverse and Web3
Arf, the VQF-regulated global settlement banking platform using Web3 technologies, raised $13M in seed funding. Coinbase, Solana, FTX, Kabbage, Circle Ventures, Stellar Development Foundation participated
Origami raised $6.2M led by Bloomberg Beta to ease that transition with technological framework and guidance for DAOs, The project has row
DeFi company Thala Labs raised $6M to build on Layer 1 Aptos co-led by ParaFi Capital, White Star Capital and Shima Capital
Exclusible raised €5M to take Metaverse experiences to a new level
Gamified digital asset platform Klink Finance raised $500,000 in a pre-seed funding round to drive its product launch by the end of 2022
Thursday:
Hong Kong fintech startup Reap raised $40M for payments between Web3 projects and traditional businesses
Zoop, a digital celebrity collectibles trading platform, raised $15M in grants and investments, and will partner with cross-game avatar company Ready Player Me
The Decentralized Engineering Corporation (DEC), which developed ride-sharing app Teleport, raised $9M in seed funding to build a decentralized Uber and Lyft competitor on Solana
Fun, a blockchain software development company, raised $3.9M in a pre-seed round led by Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen’s Jam Fund
Notebook Labs, a new startup that aims to verify the identities of crypto users without compromising privacy, has raised $3.3M in a seed funding round led by Bain Capital
Martian, a crypto wallet for the recently launched Aptos blockchain, has closed a $3M pre-seed round led by Race Capital
Bitcoin derivatives exchange Kollider closed a $2.35M seed funding round led by Lemniscap, with participation from Castle Island Ventures, Polychain Capital, Alameda Ventures and others
Friday:
A group of blockchain venture capital firms, including EOS Network Foundation, OKX Blockdream Ventures, AlphaNonce, to invest $100M over three years to establish a blockchain ecosystem in South Korea's second-largest city, Busan
Projects building on the Celo blockchain have collectively raised $77.3 million in support of various business initiatives, underscoring the growing adoption of the payments-focused developer network
Souffl3, a MOVE-based leading NFT market and launchpad on Aptos blockchain, has completed a $2M seed round investment co-led by Crypto.com Capital and Synergis Capital
Spice Finance raises $1.7M led by Shima Capital to solve & scale NFT lending
Amsterdam-based CryptoRefills, a startup on a mission to enable people to spend bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies for their everyday needs, has raised an undisclosed amount seed round funding
Early Stage Projects:
Monday:
SUI token is not live, listed, for sale, or obtainable anywhere, no plans for an official airdrop
Dream Assembly Base Camp first cohort consists of eight start-ups that are focused on shaping the future of Web3 luxury commerce
zkSync 2.0 testnet system will undergo a regenesis on Tuesday October 25th. The regenesis will reset transaction history, token balances and require developers to redeploy contracts
Meteor Wallet live - early users may qualify for airdrops
Introducing the Jupiter Stable Core, Concentrated liquidity, Optimized yield for sAMM pairs.
Argo is live on mainnet - source
Hipp Labs live on Aptos mainnet
REDACTED, a trustless Zero Knowledge protocol, is live on Terra
Yield-while-DCA has arrived to Mean Finance
Introducing Sperm Whale, a liquidation arbitrage protocol coming to team Kujira
Tuesday:
Canto Online Hackathon winners
Paraswap - PSP 2.0 Renaissance - Social Escrow, Fee Redistribution, and Fairdrop
Curio - Announcing: Phase 1 Completion - A game engine, whole new game design, and plans towards truly composable games
Minima and Minipay pilot blockchain-based retail payment system
BlockPI Alpha-net, Your Reliable Web3 RPC Service Provider
Scoville Testnet Phase 4 - CAYENNE is live. Introducing the Chiliz Chain 2.0 Developer Guide & GitHub repo
Introducing Hegic Herge protocol upgrade: live on Arbitrum
DeBank Hi, the messaging app for web3 natives, is now online
Fire is live - tool that shows you a preview of what will enter and exit your wallet, before you sign a transaction
Wednesday:
The regenesis of zkSync 2.0 testnet is now complete, and the documentation has been updated
Introducing Geo Genesis - a web3 browser and a decentralized knowledge graph app on Graph Protocol
Sui Developer Grant Program
Gnosis Safe, the most secure cross-functional multi-sig wallet, has launched on the Telos network as Telos Safe
Introducing Armada network - frontend hosting solution that is: Fully decentralized, Secure, Fast and easy to use
Silo Protocol - Introducing XAI: Cross-silos stablecoin
Introducing Hyperplonk: a super fast proof system specifically for zkEVMs
Liquid Splits: Transferrable Ownership Using NFTs
Thursday:
Hop’s first liquidity mining program is live
The new Arbitrum Nova block explorer is now
Lido has conducted an initial pilot integration of Distributed Validator Technology (DVT) with SSV Network on the Goerli testnet
CoW Grants Program (CGP) is now live and accepting grant applications
Aries Markets mainnet is live - the first borrowing and lending protocol on Aptos
Introducing Harpie - the first crypto firewall - to end fear and theft on-chain
Introducing Hyperplonk: a super fast proof system specifically for zkEVMs
Introducing 0x Explorer - the most reliable and transparent tool to help developers and users verify transactions and analyze on-chain activity
The public version of on-chain Perpetuals (NEAR-First) is live on Spin
Friday:
Introducing the Sui Foundation
Sei Whitepaper release - first sector-specific layer 1
Umami Finance official Litepaper
Attention Cosmos validators: registration is open for Game of Chains - a public incentivized testnet for Interchain Security
Zebec Protocol - airdrop alert - will distribute 5 Million $ZBC tokens to Zepoch holders based on their Zebec Points
Introducing TopGear, a risk-management wrapper built on top of Gearbox Protocol v2
The Soft Drop — A Soft DAO community airdrop - source
Research/Reads:
The india web3 startup landscape: an emerging technology leadership frontier - source
The Zero-Knowledge Landscape: Part 2 - source
Marketing In The Bera And Beyond - source
a16z - metaverse, VR, games; DAGs; web3 bizdev & NFTs; wallet security, gas optimization - source
a16z - Toppling the Internet’s Accidental Monarchs: How to Design web3 Platform Governance - source
How protocol daos should work from a cryptolaw(-ish) perspective - source
CoinGecko - Hop Protocol: A Faster Way to Move Tokens - source
Messari - Radicle: Decentralizing the Code Collaboration Stack - source
Building A New Social Network with Web3 - source
Root cause analysis from past DeFi incidents - source
Mapping the Identity Space - source
Delphi - Which one should you use? Arithmetic or geometric mean TWAP - source
Andre Cronje - The Crypto Winter of 2022 - source
The State of DeFi Options - DeFi? Options? We're not there yet - source
The Crypto Story - Where it came from, what it all means, and why it still matters - source
GMX, A Can-Be-Evil “AMM” - source
Polygon ZK Roundup: Q3 2022 - source
Messari - State of Hedera Q3 2022 - source
Messari - The Telecom Cowboys of the Decentralized Wireless Movement - source
What drives fundamentals in Crypto? - source
Decentralized Social Media Primer - Lens Protocol - source
Arthur Hayes - Comeback - source
Jump Crypto - SAFU: Creating a Standard for Whitehats - source
The State of Ethereum L2s - source
Real World Assets: Finance’s Bridge to Crypto - source
Some ideas for sushi strategy (GoldenTree) - source
Reddit avoids crypto lingo, shows how to take NFTs mainstream - source
The Reddit NFTs Thesis - source
Metaverse musings at the intersection of entertainment, crypto & law - source
New NFT/Crypto Game model - Play to Die - source
Azuki PBT: Will real-world interaction with Web3 be the next narrative wave? - source
Southeast Asia leads the world in crypto adoption, propelled by P2E gaming - source
Andreessen Horowitz Went All In on Crypto at the Worst Possible Time - source
Why Crypto Is So Popular in Turkey - source
NFT Royalties: The $1.8bn Question - source
Pantera - Blockchain's 2003 Moment - source
M6 Labs - zkLend - source
What role will Bitcoin play in the aftermath of a nuclear war? - source
Tornado Cash is no “golem.” It’s a tool for privacy and free speech - source
Decentralized Rollup Sequencing as a Service via Interchain Security - source
Metaverse Report #2: Demand for Metaverse Remains Amidst Crypto Turmoil - source
Burning MEV through block proposer auctions - source
Sway vs. Solidity Part 1: What’s The Difference? - source
Vitalik - The Revenue-Evil Curve: a different way to think about prioritizing public goods funding - source
Chainlink - Instant Finality in Byzantine Generals With Unknown and Dynamic Participation - source
Messari - State of Solana Q3 2022 - source
Twitter:
SBF clarifies his regulatory stance - source
CZ - Binance is investing heavily in DeFi - source
Trending Contracts - source
DefiLlama - Delta Neutral Yields - source
The categories of projects, building and live, in the zkSync ecosystem - source
Shardeum raised $18.2M from Street and Spartan Group and is currently in its testnet phase with a potential airdrop in the future - source
The Web3 Pulse Check 2022 - source
SBF is a mere symptom - source
Reddit NFTs - source
Apple released new rules for crypto apps (especially web3 games) in the App Store - source
A story to share about a time solend crossed paths with alameda - source
How Reddit Took The Successful First Step Into Web3 (feat. Polygon) - source
Why you should ALWAYS inspect transactions below - source
The state of crypto VC - source
DeGods is the #1 NFT project on Solana - greatest NFT comeback story - source
Twitter is working on a “wallet prototype” that supports “crypto deposit and withdrawal” - source
How to potentially qualify for $Sui airdrop - source
Users who use API KEYs and trading robots need to pay special attention to such risks - source
Single largest liquidation event on FTX in its history - source
How won Art Gobblers competition against other top NFT bots during the 2-week-long test competition despite all the psyops and collusion - source
State of Cosmos- review various projects and progress - source
Crypto tax havens - source
Guide to buying tokens in a bear market - source
Blockspace and data availability (blobspace) will be some of the essential commodities of the 2020s - source
Why DefiLlama and l2beat show significantly different numbers for TVL - source
MEGA thread-on-threads of potential airdrop opportunities - source
In 2021 it seemed like everyone in the world was buying crypto - What went wrong? - source
Complete breakdown of how the entire Twitter/Elon Musk deal went down - source
5 DEXs that don't have a token yet - source
Do DeFi protocols really need a token to work? - source
Introducing: The Web3 US-based VC fund mapping - source
Need for autonomous monetary policy before - source
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