gm. Firstly, thank you for being a dedicated reader of Digitized by Collab+Currency!
Digitized will pick back up the first week of January. Happy holidays to everyone + see you in 2023!
Visa / New Crypto Vision — Visa outlined a proposal that offers a way for users to set up automatic payments directly from their own, self-custodial wallets — potentially removing the need to include banks or centralized entities in payments. With account abstraction at the core, the proposal aims to make the world of crypto more navigable for consumers — more
Yuga Labs / New CEO — Yuga Labs, the parent company of Bored Ape Yacht Club, announced the hire of former President and COO of Activision Blizzard, Daniel Alegre, effective in the first half of 2023. "Throughout my career, I have sought to build disruptive and innovative platforms that provide long-term value to consumers," Alegre told CoinDesk. "Web3 presents an opportunity to reinvent how content is used, transacted and owned across the globe." — more
Axelar (🤝) / Ecosystem Startup Fund — Axelar announced its $60M Ecosystem Startup Funding Program that aims to support and amplify a pipeline of developers building web3 products that “rival anything on the centralized web” — more
Binance / Voyager Digital — Binance.US offered the winning bid to buy the assets of bankrupt crypto lender Voyager. The $1.022B bid outlined a plan for Voyager customer funds to be unlocked as soon as possible — more
Sam Bankman-Fried / Extradition Papers — A week after the former head of FTX was criminally indicted by a federal grand jury, SBF has now signed extradition papers to return to the United States from the Bahamas — more
FTX and Alameda Execs / Plead Guilty — Former FTX co-founder Gary Wang and Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison plead guilty to criminal charges according to a statement by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York — more
Riot Games / Ends FTX Sponsorship — Riot Games, the developers of League of Legends and many other popular games, have ended their sponsorship arrangement with FTX citing the morality clause and noting the company has “faced significant non-monetary and monetary damage due to its ongoing association with FTX.” — more
a16z / Crypto Fund Update — In an episode of The Block’s podcast titled The Scoop, partner Chris Dixon stated that a16z’s latest $4.5B fund is less than 50% deployed and the fund has retained 95% of everything they’ve ever invested in. Since its first fund four years ago, a16z has raised a total of $7.6B earmarked for the crypto sector — more
BlockFi / User Withdrawals — Bankrupt crypto lending platform, BlockFi, has filed a motion requesting authority from a U.S. bankruptcy court to allow its users to withdraw digital assets that are currently locked up in BlockFi wallets — more
Epic Games / FTC Settlement — Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite, has agreed to pay $520M in FTC settlements over allegations related to deceptive practices regarding in-game purchases and a lack of privacy protections for young players — more
Mercedes Benz / NFT Trademarks — Mercedes Benz has filed trademark applications for its S-Class, G-Class, Maybach, and Mercedes Benz lines. The application includes plans for NFTs, crypto collectibles, virtual vehicle parts, clothing, and marketplaces — more
Airbus / Avalanche NFTs — European aerospace giant Airbus has partnered with Avalanche to offer a lineup of digital collectibles to celebrate the 30th anniversary of its Airbus Helicopters — more
Huobi Exchange / Visa Partnership — Huobi, a crypto exchange with estimated reserves of $3.5B, announced a partnership with Visa that enables the exchange to issue Huobi Visa Cards to its customers. With the partnership, Huobi aims to “bring a more efficient fiat-to-crypto gateway for its users and promote the development of the virtual asset industry.” — more
Revel / $7.8M Raised — Revel, an NFT platform aiming to be “a cross between Instagram and Robinhood, wrapped in social game economics”, raises seed round led by Dragonfly Capital, with participation from Union Square Ventures, Sfermion, 6th Man Ventures, Gaingels, Wagmi Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Global Impact Ventures, Hansa Labs and Polygon — more
Pods / $5.6M Raised — Pods, a DeFi company building structured products for crypto assets, raises seed round from IOSG, Tomahawk, Republic, Framework Ventures, 4RC, Alexia Ventures and others — more
Pine Protocol / $3M Raised — Pine Protocol, a platform for permissionless NFT-backed loans and NFT financing, raises round co-led by Amber Group and Sparkle Ventures, with participation from Shima Capital and Spartan Capital, who have now been joined by private round backers, Mapleblock, The LAO, and MetaStreet Co-Founder, David Choi, and others — more
Arrakis Finance / $4M Raised — Arrakis, a decentralized market-making protocol, raises seed round SAFT from Uniswap Labs Ventures, Accel, Polygon Ventures, and Robot Ventures — more
Cypherock / $1M Raised — Cypherock, a project building a new hardware wallet that uses encrypted NFC-based cards, raises seed round from ConsenSys Mesh, Infinite Capital, Gnosis and its co-founder Stefan George, Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal, Mahin Gupta, OrangeDAO, and others — more
Foundation Devices / $7M Raised — Foundation Devices, a developer of Bitcoin-centric tools + hardware wallets, raises seed round led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Greenfield Capital and Lightning Ventures and existing investors Third Prime, Warburg Serres, Unpopular Ventures and Bolt — more
Visa: Auto Payments for Self-Custodial Wallets / Andrew Beams, Catherine Gu, Srini Raghuraman, Mohsen Minaei, + Ranjit Kumaresan — “In this technical paper, we utilize a novel concept and one of the leading Ethereum developer proposals known as Account Abstraction to explore how smart contracts can be implemented to enable automated programmable payments. We propose a new solution towards a real-world application of auto payments to demonstrate how to write a smart contract for a self-custodial wallet that can pull funds automatically, instead of requiring the user's active participation each time to instruct and push payments on a blockchain.” — more
Dirt (🤝) / 2022 Retrospective — “It’s been a great year for our newsletter. One of the joys of creating a new publication is defining its editorial voice, figuring out what separates it from all the other websites and magazines out there. As this list of stories demonstrates, I think, Dirt has achieved that. They share a certain quality that’s not totally definable — it’s internet culture, it’s criticism, it’s aesthetics, it’s the underbelly of the tech-entertainment complex, it’s always fun — but nevertheless always present.” — more
Andrew Keys / 23 Blockchain Predictions for 2023 — “Since 2016 I have ended each year with predictions for the blockchain ecosystem for the year ahead. 2022 has been one of the most tumultuous years in crypto, with a litany of decentralized and centralized entities already evaporated or on their last leg. It feels like we are in the final convulsions of a nascent ecosystem, expelling bad actors and bad practices in a dramatic but ultimately maturing process. Here’s what we’ll see on the other side.” — more
Brian Armstrong / Regulating Crypto: How we move forward as an industry from here — “Tl;dr: One of the most common questions I get asked by folks in the regulatory governance and policy communities is what exactly regulatory clarity looks like. In this blog, I outline a realistic blueprint to ensure we have regulatory clarity for centralized actors, and a level playing field across exchanges, while preserving the decentralized crypto innovations that will bring enormous benefits to the world.” — more
Zeneca / Letter 32: Artificial Intelligence — “I am not being hyperbolic. I truly believe that we are at the precipice of a world-changing paradigm being ushered in by the advent of accessible AI. I also believe that virtually everyone on earth is either unaware, or is underestimating the impact this is going to have on our lives. The closest thing I can think to relate this to is the impact that the internet had on humanity. AI is going to be even more disruptive.” — more
Lighthouse / The Road to Interoperability — “After months of hard work, we are delighted to release The Road to Interoperability report, a 100+ page "state of the union" on openness and interoperability across the metaverse, written by Lighthouse and many of the most inspiring builders in the space.” — more
Decentralizing social media: a guide to the web3 social stack / Angie Wang + Connor Dempsey — “How web3 social networks can give users control over their data, identity, and relationships, enable permissionless innovation, and rewire the power structures of social media (with a spotlight on Farcaster).” — more
Tribute Brand (🤝) / AR App for iOS — Tribute Brand, a fashion company creating products and experiences at the intersection of fashion and technology, launched its new AR App for iOS. Following their PUNK NFT drop last week, holders of the collection can now use the AR app to take photos and record videos with $PUNKY in the real world — more
Yuga Lab’s Meebits / New Album Drop — Meebits, in partnership with generative AI music platform WarpSound, released the complete “Meebits Turn On” album — a collection of 13 new songs — that are available for streaming on major platforms and free-to-claim for all Meebit holders — more
Headless Chaos x Songcamp (🤝) / Alchemy Painting 01 — Headless Chaos, a band that was born out of the Songcamp ecosystem comprised of 77 artists, launched an official garment created by members of the band (limited to 30 prints). The shirt features a custom Chaos print + label, as well as an IYK portal NFT. The project was funded through a snapshot proposal and upfront costs were covered by the band’s common funding pool — more
Valhalla / On-chain ReRoll System — Valhalla, an NFT collection sitting at the intersection of gaming and culture, released a new re-rolling mechanic that allows holders to update their PFPs and unlock new trait combinations, all of which are updated and stored on-chain — more
Polygon / Hi App Partnership — Polygon partnered with the neo-banking app Hi to build a platform that allows users to mint NFTs for the cover of their web3-focused debit card product. Cardholders can spend either crypto or fiat at 90M global merchants — more
Podcast: On the Brink with Castle Island / Rep. Tom Emmer — “Minnesota Representative and newly elected House Whip Tom Emmer joins the show for a discussion of the FTX fallout, the House hearings, the SEC’s behavior throughout the process, and developments in the House looking ahead to 2023.” — more
Bored Ape Yacht Club / Jimmy The Monkey — “The trial of #JimmytheMonkey starts with a short film kicking off a new chapter in the lore of BAYC. Pieces of the narrative will be released along the way. Pay attention to the signs, details might be important down the line. Things come to a head in late January with a free, playable, interactive mint experience for BAYC and MAYC holders. You’ll be asked to test your skills (and your knowledge).” — more
DeJewelry / Jewelry x NFTs x AR — DeJewelry, a project blending jewelry and NFTs through augmented reality, announced a new collection of 999 membership NFTs that will grant holders access to brand benefits. DeGods and y00ts holders are eligible to claim a spot on the whitelist — more
Beervangeer / Art Blocks (🤝): The Field — “The Field is a work inspired by the current trend in image synthesis made possible by machine learning technology. The latent spaces (the algorithmic structures that make AI image synthesis possible) can be seen as a part of our human collective unconsciousness; a hyper dimensional field of unlimited outcomes, inspired by our human symbols and language.” 369 Editions, Dutch Auction 9.36 ETH —> 0.22 ETH, dropping January 4th — more
Tù.úk'z / objkt: My Sorcerer's Toolkit — “This art collection features a selection of magical and mystical objects that a sorcerer might use in their craft. Each piece is a unique and carefully crafted work of art, imbued with a sense of magic and wonder.” Seven 1/1’s, 50 tezos, two remaining at time of writing — more
Jonas Lund / Art Blocks (🤝): Race Condition — “Race Condition is a racing game where you're flying through space at rapid speeds and see colors and shapes swoosh by. The game-objective is straightforward: you accelerate and try and stay on the road, if you miss a jump or a turn, you crash! The script determines the properties of your spaceship, acceleration, handling and max speed, as well as the map layout, including difficulty, color composition, and available power ups.” 325 Editions, Dutch Auction 5 ETH —> 0.09 ETH, dropping January 20th — more
Ryan Selkis / 95 Crypto Theses for 2023
Kevin Rose / 💯 PROOF (🤝) —> 2023 👀
punk9059 / NFT Grails Poll Results, > 5,000 votes 👀
Deca (🤝) / Friendship Decagons
NEON DAO (🤝) / First Year Recap
pesudo / Zero-knowledge Proofs + Blockchain Games
mhonkasalo / Ultrasound Money Review
Harpie / On-chain Firewall Protection in Action
proper / 2022 Retrospectives
Ryan Watt / 200M Unique Wallets on Polygon
Justin.sol / Solana 2023
DCInvestor / Broken Crypto UX + Delegation Fixes
punk6529 / On NFT Delegation
charlesai.eth / ETH Price Tracking NFT powered by Transient Labs
Andrew Steinwold / On Yuga’s New CEO
Blur / NFT Trading Volume
SuperMassive / Feliz Frazidad
RTFKT / Division Street x University of Oregon 🦆
🤝 = Collab+Currency Portfolio Company
Curated by @Collab_Currency x @_cutbank
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