Subscribe to my weekly newsletter here
Gm web3 people! From FTX updates to Porsche NFTs release, I believe you have a lot to catch up on!!
What’s Happening in Web3
1. FTX
SBF is still a free man 😥
- US government seizes $700 million in assets and cash belonging to SBF.
- The new FTX Chief said the crypto exchange could restart and the FTT token pumped +30%.
- The SEC charges Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang with defrauding investors with FTX.
- CZ Binance during a Twitter space alleged that FTX paid $43M to a news organization to publish FUD.
- SBF gave $400M to Modulo Capital, a trading firm cofounded by Xiaoyun Lily Zhang (lover??). Modulo’s executives had close ties to SBF and FTX: New York Times
- The U.S. Attorney’s Office seized nearly $50M in funds that SBF kept at Farmington Bank.
- BlockFi had over $1.2 billion tied up with FTX and SBF. Their $415.9M is on FTX exchange and lent $831.3M to Alameda. And also:
2. Peter Thiel Timed The Market!
According to Financial Times, Peter Thiel’s (Don of the Paypal Mafia, and investor who gave $500,000 check to Facebook – which is worth Billions now) VC firm Founders Fund, which has $11 billion in assets under management, sold a big chunk of its crypto at the end of March 2022 ($BTC was at $41,976 at the time, down around 40% from its all-time high).
And ~66% of the firm’s overall crypto investments were in Bitcoin. They made $1.8B in returns. Amazing…. But….
He made a pro-bitcoin speech just a month after his fund reportedly sold most of its crypto.
He said the rise in bitcoin’s price was an implication that the “central banks are bankrupt” and that it signaled “the end of the fiat money regime.” He also spoke out against bitcoin’s critics, calling billionaire investor Warren Buffett “Enemy No.1” and a “sociopathic grandpa from Omaha.”
Hmm..
3. Porsche NFTs, Failed?
The mint price was set to 0.911 ETH, with a total collection of 7,500 NFTs. The mint got a very huge backlash from NFT people for its high mint price and lack of utility (holders will have a say in the future design of Porsche cars or something like that…).
Anyways, only 2363 NFTs were minted, before they shut down the minting process. I considered it just a corporate cash-grab failure. And then, the floor 3x’ed.
4. Kevin Rose Lost $1M+ 😥
Kevin Rose, the CEO and co-founder of NFT collective Proof, and also the creator of MoonBirds NFT collection lost millions because of a wallet hack.
Reason: Kevin was phished into signing a malicious signature that allowed the hacker to transfer a large number of high-value tokens.
5. Amazon Into Web3??
“Amazon is launching a digital assets enterprise.” That’s what I’ve been hearing all over on twitter. Anyways, here are some rumours you should know about:
- They are planning to build something that makes Amazon customers to play crypto games and claim free NFTs in the process.
- They will be building an NFT marketplace (We already have an amazon on NFTs – OpenSea, but still…. if they play smart, they can disrupt).
Turns out, it’s not a collab after all, unlike what the description says so. And so, he comes up with an apology.
But why do it in the first place at all?? 💀
6. Market Overview
Some bullet points filled with numbers:
- Bitcoin and Ethereum’s fear and greed index are no longer showing Fear. It’s either neutral or greedy.
- Bitcoin was up +30% since Jim Cramer said it was a good chance to get out, 2 weeks ago. The inverse effect is very real!!
- According to Glassnode, the amount of HODLed or lost Bitcoin is now at a 5-year high.
- Solana hit $25 on Jan 21st. The same day, a month ago, it was trading at $12.
Weekly Performance Numbers:
- Ethereum: +2.51%
- Bitcoin: +8.82%
- Solana: +13.41%
- Fantom: +50.92%
- Polygon: +12.66
7. Introducing ‘AST’: Celsius
The bankrupt crypto lender Celsius is back in news. Celsius lawyers want to give Asset Share Tokens (AST) to creditors which reflect the value of the assets they have locked.
Note: Only customers with assets above a certain amount get these tokens and the remaining will get a one-time repayment.
Quick Bites
- Former FTX US president Brett Harrison raised $5M for a new crypto software firm.
- Tesla did not sell any of its Bitcoin in Q4 2022.
- On Jan 22, Polygon hit 215M unique addresses.
- 60% of Cardano nodes went offline for a few minutes on Sunday. The network recovered without interference, but the cause of the failure is still unknown.
- Solana NFT marketplace NFTGo’s sales volume is going down. There has been a decrease in traders over the last few weeks, from 5,235 to 2,405.
- Genesis filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. From ‘we are fine’ to ‘we are bankrupt’:
- Vitalik Buterin Proposes a Privacy Fix for Ethereum: “one of the largest remaining challenges in the Ethereum ecosystem.”
- New Jersey regulators are looking to pass a bill that would make it illegal for residents to buy or sell an NFT without a license. Just the beginning of ‘they are coming for your jpegs‘.
- According to DappRadar, NFT sales topped a whopping $101 million in 2022, a huge 67.57% increase from 2021.
- The first look of the Solana dApp Store that will be shipped with Saga is out now!
Interesting Tweets
Interesting Numbers
2.6B
Total fines imposed by SEC on crypto came to about $2.6 billion since 2013, out of which settlements amounted to $242 million as of Dec. 2022.
Interesting Reads
- Metaverse Landlords Are Creating a New Class System
- Why I believe Polygon is the coolest blockchain today
- 5 Charts Showing How Brutal 2022 Was for Public Bitcoin Miners
- 7 things to be excited about this year from the perspective of a developer of 10+ yrs
- Annual Developer Report by Electric Capital – Summarized
- Tokenomics: What the hell are they?
- How to turn your community into a DAO
- 5 Arbitrum Protocols without a token
Do You Know?
Ethereum smart contracts deployment jumped 293% in 2022.
Meme Of The Week 😂
It has only been a couple of weeks since the GOT NFT release…
Disclaimer: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice. Please be careful and always do your own research.