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Wassup web3 people! This week’s newsletter is filled with a lot of quick bites, and memes (of course), along with numbers and links (from which you can learn a looooot).

Quick Bites

• Arbitrum has finally announced its long-awaited airdrop! $ARB... Check eligibility here. Also, Arbitrum daily transactions broke 1M for the second time (Airdrop effect).
• Ethereum’s “Shapella” hard fork has now been scheduled to deploy on mainnet on Apr. 12. The Shapella upgrade is the combination of the execution layer (Shanghai) with the consensus layer (Capella), which will allow validators to withdraw their locked-up ether from the network.
• One of the affected users of Euler Finance sent the hacker a transaction with a comment. In response, the hacker sent 100 ETH to the wallet of the victim. As of now, there is no update on the hacker returning the funds, and also a $1M reward was announced by Euler Finance to whoever tracks the hacker. A thread on hack. The hacker got caught in connection with Lazarus, the North Korean hacker group:

• “Ronin bridge exploiter,” which last March stole $625 million worth from crypto game #AxieInfinity, sent an on-chain note to Euler’s exploiter asking it to decrypt an encrypted message. But the message was a phishing scam attempting to steal the credentials for the Euler exploiter’s wallet. Just a hacker trying to hack a hacker. Also, ‘No Intention of Keeping What Is Not Ours,’ is what the DeFi protocol exploiter messaged to Euler Finance on-chain.
• Polkadot is joining forces with global music giant Beatport to launch a digital collectible marketplace bringing electronic music culture to Web3. The platform will launch on Polkadot parachain Aventus Network.
• Bitcoin hits 9-month high: $27,500.
• Layer 2 networks have surged to new all-time highs (1.54M), with combined L2 activity beating out mainnet Ethereum transaction (1.04M) volume by 48% on Thursday (March 16th).
• Microsoft is probably considering a deep move into web3: Microsoft has added code that would integrate a non-custodial crypto wallet into the company’s default Edge browser.
• Unstoppable domains launches .polygon IDs.
• Sesame Workshop is launching digital collectibles: The first collectibles will feature Cookie Monster and will be sold as NFTs on the VeVe app starting March 19. There will be 5,555 Cookie Monster NFTs available for purchase at $60 each.

• SalesForce is launching a brand new NFT management platform dubbed “Salesforce Web3“.
• Silicon Valley Bank officially files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.
• USDT’s market cap is now almost 2x as much as that of USDC.
• Balaji Srinivasan made a total of $1M bet (Balaji did 3 different bets, totaling $3M in spend) that 1 BTC will be > $1 million in less than 90 days.Just a marketing stunt?? Everyone is talking about it. I’m talking about it…So.. Anyways, we’ll have to wait till June mid.

• Sony Interactive Entertainment has filed a patent that reveals their plans to use non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and blockchain technology in their video games. “NFT Framework For Transferring And Using Digital Assets Between Game Platforms” 👀
• Immutable and Polygon Labs are partnering to build a dedicated gaming blockchain using zero-knowledge technology to accelerate decentralized game development.
• Arbitrum aridrop is live??
• Gala Games sues pNetwork for $27.7M 🚔.
• Florida Governor Ron DeSantis introduced a law to ban the use of CBDCs in the state.
• This BTC DeGod sold for 3.52 BTC ($100,000):

• Sushi announced they received a subpoena from the SEC and they are fully cooperating with the investigation.
• Celsius has received formal approval to let custody account holders receive more than 72% of their holdings.
• Unstoppable Domains to allow users to send encrypted messages to one another, helping Web3 projects foster community. (from #polygon-based domains).
• Magic Eden launches Bitcoin NFT Marketplace, supporting secondary sales of Bitcoin NFT.
• Monero founder is a secret informant for the Interpol ???
• XRP Climbs 20% in a Day, in the hope of Ripple might win the lawsuit. Looks like it is gonna win.
• Nexon to build a blockchain version of its MapleStory Universe game using Polygon Supernet. And the game will have NFTs integrated with various functionality.
• The IRS released guidance seeking to tax NFTs like other collectibles, the first move to clarify tax treatment of digital assets.

Interesting Numbers

4.9M

Playboy held all the $ETH they earned from NFTs. They reported a loss of $4.9M on the holdings.

1.7M

Bitcoin addresses increased by 1.7M over the past two months & 70K $BTC has been sent to self-custody since the collapse of SVB.

1.25B

MakerDAO set to increase portfolio holdings in United States Treasury bonds (150% hike) from $500M to $1.25B.

151M

Since 2014, the US State Department has confiscated and sold 185k $BTC in exchange for over $151 million. With the current price of $28,000 per coin, that would have been $5.2 billion 👀🔥🤯 IF ONLY THEY HODLed….

500k

More than 500k Bitcoin inscriptions have been created on Ordinals protocol as of March 17th. BTC miners have earned an extra $2.66M in fees since the inscription boom. 

Interesting Reads

• How music NFTs can transform the music industry
• What is Hyperinflation?
• NFTs are dumb
• Threads on Stacks ($STX) ecosystem developments
• 6 smart airdrop hunters who have gotten nearly every massive airdrop in crypto
• Mint First
• How to decentralize a Fortune 500 company?

Meme Of The Week 😂

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.