Web3: Ridley Scott producing Ethereum the Movie; Optimism airdrop?; Moonbirds NFTs soar; BlockApps raises $40MM for enterprise; Blockchain.com on $14B IPO path
Gm Fintech Futurists —
Welcome to our Web3 newsletter, focused on covering the overall progress in the metaverse, NFTs, and DeFi. If you want to go deeper with our weekly long takes and develop a view on the space, check out our premium features below.
Public Blockchains
⭐ Ridley Scott to Produce Film About Ethereum’s Rise - Decrypt
How Web3 can Change Social Media - Miles Jennings
As seen in our previous edition, Aave’s founder has dipped into social media with the development of Lens Protocol and Elon has now bought Twitter. How do you think Web3 will shape the future of social media? Check out our Long Take on the topic here, and let us know what you think in Discord.
Coming At You Live From Goblin Town - knower
First African Country Adopts Bitcoin Currency - Forbes
ZK is Rising in Popularity In the Crypto World - Pothu
Polygon Commits $100M to ‘Supernets’ as Layer 1s Stand Up Application-Specific Blockchains - CoinDesk
NFT, Metaverse, and Gaming
⭐ Moonbirds Fly Into NFT Top Spot With $290M Sold In Four Days - Coin Telegraph
Coinbase’s Ethereum NFT Marketplace Launches in Beta - Decrypt
The Sandbox Gears Up to Raise $400 Million at a $4 billion Valuation: Report - The Block
The Metaverse Puts The Digital Asset Interoperability Challenge On Steroids - Coin Telegraph
OpenSea Acquires NFT Aggregator Gem - The Block
DeFi and Stablecoins
⭐ Coinbase Shows Price Page for Optimism, Suggesting a Token Could be on the Way - The Block
Optimism specialises in Optimistic rollup technology where transactions are bundled into a rollup contract and assumed valid by default. If an incorrect state is published on-chain, users can detect where the invalid transaction lies (fraud proof). ZK-rollups on the other hand prove that all transactions are correctly signed and this is verified by the rollup on the main chain (validity proof). Read our Long Take on how Polygon is going all in on both technologies.
Ethereum’s MakerDAO to Launch on StarkNet, Promises 10x Lower Gas Costs - Decrypt (Read our Short Take)
Justin Sun to Launch Algorithmic Stablecoin USDD on Tron, Will use $10 billion of Crypto as Collateral - The Block
Terra’s Stablecoin UST Becomes Crypto’s Third-Largest - Decrypt
Crypto, Fintech and Institutional
⭐ Blockchain.com Readies for IPO at $14B Valuation - PYMNTS
Blockchain.com was originally set up as a block explorer over a decade ago. Today they offer an array of services, with 2021 reported annual revenue of $1.5B. We recently shared that the firm raised a massive $400MM round, giving it a potential IPO value of $14B. Exciting times ahead for an OG player in Web3!
Twitter and Stripe Roll Out USDC Payout Program for Creators via Polygon - Coin Telegraph
Goldman Sachs Reportedly Eyes FTX Alliance with Regulatory and Public Listing Assistance - Coin Telegraph
Asset Managers Set to Launch Crypto ETFs in Australia Next Week - The Block
Framework Ventures Launches $400M DeFi Fund Targeting Gaming, Web3 Startups - Blockworks
Enterprise Chains and CBDCs
⭐ Ethereum-Focused BlockApps Raised $41 million to Expand into Enterprise Blockchain Space - Tech Crunch
Mizuho Trust to Issue Real Estate Security Tokens - Ledger Insights
Decentralized Identity Startup Spruce Raises $34 Million in Funding Round Led by a16z - The Block
DAOs and Token Engineering
⭐ How DAOs Have Evolved—And What’s Next - Decrypt
Decent Labs Launches DAO With Crypto Investing Giants at $56M Valuation - CoinDesk
As Labour Struggle Takes Centre Stage, can DAOs Democratise Work? - Coin Telegraph
Cryptoeconomic Research
We partner with the ConsenSys Cryptoeconomics team to share DeFi analysis, fundamental protocol research, token engineering, and DAO design.
⭐ JPEG'd: An NFT DeFi Primitive
JPEG’d has developed a novel DeFi primitive, non-fungible debt position (NFDP), that enables users to deposit their NFTs into JPEG’d as collateral and take out a loan for a portion of its total value. It’s a mortgage, good people.
⭐ Silo Protocol: A Non-Custodial Lending Protocol for Permissionless Money Markets
Silo will allow for anyone to create a secure and efficient money market in a permissionless manner for all crypto-assets.
⭐ Tokenomics Research | NFT Tokens | April 2022
NFTs surged in popularity in 2021, with around 26.8 million wallets trading NFT last year alone - up from 545,000 in 2020. Some of the most successful projects are growing their ecosystems through the use of token rewards and community-focussed privileges. Let’s dive into the projects doing it best.
⭐ Gyroscope: A Self-Stabilizing, "All-Weather" Reserve-backed Stablecoin
The Gyroscope stablecoin works with an algorithmic pricing mechanism for stablecoin redemptions to be maximally resilient to all risks across DeFi.
⭐ DeFi Protocol Governance Report | April 2022 | Week 4
This week's governance newsletter covers Aave's governance framework for Portals, Sushi's treasury utilisation and more!
More? More!
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