Sam Bankman-Fried / Arrested — Former FTX CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, was taken into custody on December 12th in the Bahamas. The arrest followed a formal notification from the U.S. that it filed criminal charges and was likely to request SBF’s extradition back to the States. The news was confirmed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York — more
The Block / CEO Resigns — The CEO of The Block, a leading news and research group reporting on digital assets, resigned from his position after failing to disclose loans made by Alameda Research. Micheal McCaffrey was allegedly the only person at the company aware of this funding arrangement — more
CA Class-Action Lawsuit / NFT Endorsements — A California class-action lawsuit has been filed against forty people and companies, including MoonPay, Yuga Labs, Paris Hilton, Jimmy Fallon, Madonna, and Justin Beiber, among others. The suit claims celebrity endorsements of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs and ApeCoin tokens resulted in financial loss for investors — more
PayPal / MetaMask Partnership — The new partnership between PayPal and Metamask aims to enable users to select their PayPal accounts as a payment method to buy ETH using the MetaMask app, with the goal of creating a seamless purchasing and transfer process for users — more
Apple / External iOS Apps — In efforts to comply with strict EU regulations coming in 2024, Apple allegedly has plans to allow iPhone and iPad users to install iOS apps from outside the App Store. If third-party downloads are allowed, then developers could more easily build apps around NFTs and crypto payments — more
Robinhood / Avalanche Learn-and-Earn — Robinhood Crypto teams up with Avalanche to launch its first learn-and-earn campaign, allowing users to earn AVAX tokens while learning about the Avalanche blockchain ecosystem — more
Microsoft / Activision Blizzard — In an effort to promote fair competition, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission opposed Microsoft’s proposed purchase of gaming giant Activision Blizzard. The purchase was originally intended to bolster Microsoft’s metaverse initiatives — more
a16z Crypto / Big Ideas 2023 — “The list spans everything from consumer tech and games to enterprise and American Dynamism to enterprise and AI to fintech and of course, crypto. Here’s a shortlist of just some of the things that excite partners across the engineering, research, and investing teams about what’s ahead.” — more
Solana / Discord Integration — Discord announced new “Linked Roles” that allow server admins to create roles and gate channels based on credentials or other identifiers. The Linked Roles include support for Solana and will allow users to link and authenticate with their wallets in-app — more
Reddit / Collectible Avatars — Reddit’s Collectible Avatar collection surpassed 5.1M NFTs this week across more than 4.3M total unique wallets. In addition, roughly 4M wallets hold just a single NFT, meaning the collection is broadly distributed and isn’t overly concentrated amongst whales — more
Magic Eden / Rewards System — Magic Eden announces a new program that rewards users with discounts and NFTs based on their activity on the marketplace. “Magic Eden Rewards” officially launched on December 15th and followed the marketplace’s recent action to reinstate a creator royalty system — more
Frontrunner / $4.75M Raised — Frontrunner, a non-custodial decentralized sports prediction market building in the Cosmos ecosystem, raises seed round led by Susquehanna Private Equity Investments, with participation from SOMA Capital, Toy Ventures, Ledger Prime, and WAGMI Ventures — more
Outdefine / $2.5M Raised — Outdefine, a startup building a decentralized hiring network on Solana, raises seed round from Jump Crypto, Big Brain Holding, and TCG Crypto — more
Nillion / $20M Raised — Nillion, a project aimed at building a non-blockchain based decentralized network, raises round led by Distributed Global, with participation from Big Brain Holdings, Chapter One, GSR, and HashKey, among others — more
Liquid Access / $3M Raised — Liquid Access, a provider of SaaS for organizations to create and manage web3-enabled digital assets, raises seed round led by Flintera. The startup aims to help companies convert their existing subscriptions, memberships, and loyalty programs into portable assets — more
Evertas / $14M Raised — Evertas, a crypto insurance firm, raises Series A round led by Polychain Capital, with participation from SinoGlobal Capital, CMT Digital Ventures, Foundation Capital, Morgan Creek, and others — more
EXEVerse Labs / $7.5M Raised — EXEVerse Labs, an Asia-based NFT company focused on metaverse and web3 products, raises round from Berkwood Capital’s “NFT Future Fund” — more
Forum3 / $10M Raised — Forum3, a branded digital collectible and strategic advisory company behind the recent Starbucks web3 loyalty program, raises seed round led by Decasonic, with participation from Bloccelerate, Liberty City Ventures, and Arca, along with strategic investments from Polygon Ventures and Valor Siren Ventures — more
Dogami / $7M Raised — Dogami, a web3 game that enables players to adopt and raise virtual dogs, raises seed extension led by European VC firm XAnge, with participation from Bpifrance, Blockchain Founders Fund, and Wagram Capital — more
MetaVersusWorld / $2M Raised — MetaVersusWorld, an interactive, web3-based metaverse platform, raises seed round from Alphabit Digital Currency Fund, Xeta Capital, Launchpool, and Westridge Markets, among others — more
Spaceport / $3.6M Raised — Spaceport, a web3 protocol aiming to enable brands, creators, and agencies to monetize their intellectual property, raises pre-seed round co-led by Arca, Decasonic and Crit Ventures, with participation from Infinity Ventures Crypto, FBG Capital, and Republic Asia — more
Anima / $3M Raised — Anima, the creator of the on-chain AR NFT project called Onlybots, raises round from Polygon Studios, Not Boring Capital, HashKey, and others — more
Vogue: Tribute Brand (🤝) wants to be digital fashion’s go-to platform / Madeline Schulz — “The original intent was to build infrastructure for digital fashion — instead, Tribute Brand's own designs took off. Now, its founders are launching the multi-brand platform they envisioned, with the hope of onboarding the fashion crowd to Web3.” — more
The Ghosts of Internets Past / Drew Coffman x FWB (🤝) — “Web3 is at a clear inflection point: On the one hand, corporations like Meta, Starbucks, and Ticketmaster are co-opting its underlying technologies; on the other, a series of high-profile disasters has created a reputational dumpster fire hampering its momentum and perceived potential. It's less clear than ever whether web3 will be the future of the internet, or simply stripped for parts by centralized players hoping to wring some profit out of it.” — more
Before the Flood: Ruminations on the future of AI / Samuel Hammond — “Between Stable Diffusion and the recent release of ChatGPT, now no one can deny that deep learning is capable of borderline magic. Kvetching about bias and its tendency to confabulate incorrect outputs aside, progress in ML could grind to a halt tomorrow and we’d still have a decade or more of new commercial applications to explore. It’s crazy to think it’s just getting started.” — more
Consoles and Competition / Ben Thompson — “Microsoft is willing to cannibalize itself to build a new business model for video games, and it’s a business model that is pretty darn attractive for consumers. It’s also a business model that Activision wouldn’t pursue on its own, because it has its own profits to protect. Most importantly, though, it’s a business model that is anathema to Sony: making titles broadly available to consumers on a subscription basis is the exact opposite of the company’s exclusive strategy, which is all about locking consumers into Sony’s platform.” — more
Beyond Phygital / Greta Rainbow x Red DAO (🤝) — “Phygital is a scourge upon society. Not the concept, which future-minded artists obviously stand behind – the basic concept of physical meets digital, URL enters IRL – but the word itself. Phonetically ugly, it sputters out of the mouth.” — more
Towards Digital Self-Sovereignty: The Web3 Identity Stack / Nichanan Kesonpat — “Decentralized identity has been a collective effort long before the rise of crypto and web3. The overarching goal is to give individuals back autonomy over their identity without relying on centralized, monolithic gatekeepers. Misuse of customer data and erosion of trust in large corporations has put decentralization at heart of the next era of internet identity.” — more
Crypto Products, But Increasingly Useful / Rapolas at Zee Prime Capital — “The open network nature of blockchains and products built on top of them exemplify the idea of “come for the tool, stay for the network”. We hope the idea of web3 can take the relationship between networks and Increasing Marginal Utility (IMU) even further. Absence of gatekeepers can lead to greater user experiences, where unique products are not marginalized as features.” — more
The long user march to the blockchain: How to get to a billion users on Web 3 / Antonio García Martínez — “With ever more engaging consumer apps, there’s no reason why Web 3 shouldn’t be able to drive mass adoption via both new and old marketing channels, if it can manage to measure what’s going on. Thus far, Web 3 has been flying blind, but no longer.” — more
Tribute Brand (🤝) / PUNK — Tribute Brand, a fashion company creating products and experiences at the intersection of fashion and technology, announces their genesis platform drop called PUNK — a 10k multi-layered generative drop that comes with three completely different assets, each of them reinterpreting original traits in different realms. Minting is live — more
Bonfire (🤝) / Open for Builders — Bonfire, a powerful no-code platform builder for creators and their communities, is now open for all creators. With Bonfire, creators can build a custom web3-enabled site integrated natively with their digital assets and content. NFT drops, gated content, airdrops, livestreams, and community contests are available for creators on Bonfire — more
Mirror[.xyz] / NFT Embeds — The web3 publishing platform, Mirror, announces improved NFT embeds that allows users to showcase PFPs, art, and music directly within their posts more easily. Embeds now available on Ethereum Mainnet, Optimism, and Polygon — more
Arweave CEO Sam Williams / Defiant Podcast — “This week on The Defiant Podcast, we speak with Sam Williams, the co-founder and CEO of Arweave, a 'collectively owned hard drive' that enables users to store data, applications, and documents on-chain, forever. We start by learning about Sam's crypto journey, from discovering Bitcoin in 2010 and going on to invest in the Ethereum ICO and finally, starting Arweave.” — more
Axelar Network (🤝) / Secret Network Integration — Axelar integrates with Secret Network to offer private cross-chain messaging and NFT transfers. “With Secret + Axelar, applications can send private messages between blockchains. Secret Network has outlined use cases, including providing front-running resistant swaps, private NFT trading and private voting for DAOs.” — more
Deca (🤝) / Introducing Etched — Deca, in collaboration with the artist Matt Kane, launches a new platform called Etch. With Etch, artists and collectors can etch words on-chain by utilizing Ethereum + Arweave. Written stories can now be memorialized and stored permanently on-chain in a creative + aesthetically pleasing format. Check out the tweet section below for info on the new Proof of Giving campaign powered by Etch — more
Floor (🤝) / Available on App Store — Floor, a mobile app that offers live NFT portfolio tracking, discovery, and community interaction, is now available (invite-only) on iOS and Android. Floor has been used in 112 countries over 2m times by 15k+ token holders and soon Genesis NFT hodlers will be able to claim usernames on the app. Also, the app just added support for Polygon NFTs — more
Spice Finance / Prologue — Spice Finance, a startup offering aggregated NFT lending liquidity, created a series of 555 PFP NFTs called the Prologue Series that aim to bootstrap the ecosystem. The Prologue collection aims to bridge the gap between DeFi and NFTs and enables holders to earn APR on their NFTs — more
Party DAO / PartyBid Goes Live — Party DAO introduces the new PartyBid — the “on-chain multiplayer for NFTs” — which enables parties to coordinate together as an on-chain group. PartyBid allows groups of any size to buy, own + use, or sell NFTs together. Each PartyBid group receives an on-chain membership called a Party Card that enables voting rights, ownership, and a live display of Party activity — more
Metamask Institutional / Gnosis DAO and Cobo — MetaMask Institutional teams up with Gnosis DAO and Cobo to launch a soulbound token project called “Evolution”. The SBT was created to “provide assurance to the token provider and allows them to give exclusive access and benefits to their targeted users by giving them an identity.” — more
Sandstorm / GPU Acceleration — Sandstorm is a new GPU-accelerated, SHARP-compatible Cairo prover by miniSTARK. The prover was built by reverse engineering StarkWare's (🤝) open-source verifier and may allow for more complex deep learning models to exist on-chain — more
Ryan Bell / Art Blocks (🤝): Hyper Drive: A-Side — “This project is an experimental cross-chain collection, with a fully-generative A-side published via Art Blocks on Ethereum and an AI-based image composition B-side published via fxhash on Tezos. The artwork symbolizes the great divides we must cross, the connections we make along the way, and the disconnections we feel. We move through the world as the world moves through us.” Releasing Jan 11, 2023, 10:00am PT — more
Jesse Draxler, Jake Fried, Sputniko, Qubibi, Yazid, Shunsuke Takawo, Richard Nadler, Rudxane, Gary Edward Blum, + Nicolas Sasson / Verse Works: Magical Realism — “Inspired by author Haruki Murakami’s fictional worlds, Verse is pleased to present Magical Realism… Murakami’s stories place readers in a liminal space somewhere between the real and the imagined. Exploring the same eerily familiar space as Murakami, the works in ‘Magical Realism’ elevate and distort the material of everyday life to magical realms.” Artworks releasing December 14-21 — more
A.A. Murakami / Art Blocks (🤝) x Pace: Floating World Genesis — “The first component of a multidisciplinary project by A.A. Murakami, Floating World Genesis comprises 250 unique NFTs, each depicting one of three animated scenes chronicling the origins of life on Earth: a single microbial bubble that may split in two; clusters of self-organizing bubbles that represent the growth of multicellular life; and a single bubble situated on the horizon, signifying the formation of the Earth’s biosphere.” Releasing Dec 21, 2022, 9:00am PT — more
Metaversal / The 2022 Rewind
Deca (🤝) / Proof of Giving, Powered by Etch
U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of NY / SBF Arrested
Derek Edws / Art Sense Podcast Ep. 77
Tribute Brand (🤝) / PUNK IS LIVE.
XCOPY / Grift Bar x Mona (🤝)
Blur / Launch of Blur Bids
Hume (🤝) / Worlds Apart: Angelbaby x Clio - Ep. 4
Async Art (🤝) / Dynamic Blueprints 👀
Tessera / Chromie Squiggle Dutch Auction
Token Terminal / Sound.[xyz] (🤝) Growth
Chris Burniske / Suitable Punk Comps
the 402 / New Chat Features + Allowlisting Integration w/ Sound.[xyz] (🤝)
Victor Reyes / The Most Interesting Form of Art
Sequence / Weekly Web3 Gaming Ecosystem Recap
Heca / Liquidity in NFT Markets
Watcher Guru / Trump NFTs
SaaS Trash / Entering an Era of Synthetic Reality
🤝 = Collab+Currency Portfolio Company
Curated by @Collab_Currency x @_cutbank
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