China / New NFT Trading Platform — On New Year’s day, China launched a state-sanctioned secondary trading platform for digital assets. The platform was created to “standardize trading processes and eliminate black market speculation in digital assets”. The platform’s “innovation working group” is made up of museums, tourist organizations, and copyright holders — more
Coinbase / AML Settlement — Following a settlement with New York’s financial regulator, Coinbase will pay $50M to the regulator and another $50M to expand its compliance department. The regulator found that Coinbase’s anti-money laundering program did not keep up with customer growth — more
Three Arrows Capital / Subpoenaed via Tweet — 3AC founders Kyle Davies and Zhu Su were served subpoenas via Twitter, as liquidators struggled to contact the founders through more traditional methods. The two founders have been on the run since their multi-billion dollar hedge fund collapsed last year — more
Sam Bankman-Fried / Pleads Not Guilty — SBF pleaded not guilty to all eight charges in U.S. District Court in New York City on Tuesday. Criminal charges include wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to misuse customer funds, among others. He could face up to 115 years in jail if convicted on all charges. His trial date has been set for October 2, 2023 — more
Square Enix / Blockchain Gaming — The president of Square Enix, the gaming company behind the Final Fantasy franchise, stated that “blockchain entertainment” is the investment field his team will be most focused on in the medium term and that they will devote “aggressive investment and business development efforts” to the space — more
Digital Currency Group / Wealth Mgmt Wind Down — DCG, the crypto conglomerate, stated it’s shutting down its wealth-management division called HQ. The business, which is said to have had more than $3.5B in assets under management, will wind down due to “the state of the broader economic environment and prolonged crypto winter presenting significant headwinds to the industry.” — more
Animoca / Fundraising Target —Animoca, a Hong-Kong based game software company, has cut its fundraising goal for Animoca Capital’s new web3 and metaverse fund from $2B down to $1B, quoting a “challenging market” as the reason for the shift — more
Microsoft / ChatGPT Integration — With aims to improve search results, Microsoft announced plans to update its Bing search engine with AI from OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The new feature is expected to launch in March. Microsoft invested $1B into OpenAI in 2019 and just this week OpenAI is reportedly in investor talks targeting a $29B valuation — more
Celsius CEO / Sued for Fraud — New York is suing former Celsius CEO, Alex Mashinsky, alleging the now-bankrupt crypto lending platform defrauded investors. The complaint reads, "Celsius’s business model was unsustainable. As Celsius proved unable to generate sufficient returns through safe loans and investments, it began to make uncollateralized loans to institutional borrowers and engage in risky strategies on unregulated decentralized finance protocols.” — more
DeGods x y00ts / Chain Migration — Two of the most significant NFT projects on Solana in terms of floor price will migrate to new blockchains. Project creator, “Frank DeGods”, announced y00ts will migrate over to Polygon and DeGods will bridge to Ethereum — more
MSafe / $5M Raised — MSafe, a multi-sig wallet solution on the Aptos / Move ecosystem, announced seed round led by Jump Crypto with participation from Circle Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Shima Capital, Spartan Group, and others — more
Ondefy / $1M Raised — Ondefy, an on-ramping solution aimed at simplifying on-chain token accessibility and DeFi for retail users, raises round with participation from AngelDAO, Paraswap, Cablleros Capital, Stake Capital, and others — more
Calvaria / $2.5M Raised — Calvaria, a new play-to-earn project aiming to attract casual and traditional gamers onto the blockchain, raises more than $2.5M in a token pre-sale — more
Three underrated product trends: 2022 recap and 2023 predictions / Richard Chen — “As an annual tradition, I always make three under-the-radar product trend predictions for the upcoming year … With that, here are my three underrated product trends for 2023: ENS, MEV business model for apps and wallets, and Generative art.” — more
The next big thing in 2023 will be... / Nikhil Basu Trivedi — “For the third year in a row, 50 of technology's top thinkers weigh in on the year ahead.” — more
2023 Crypto Thesis / New Order — “2022 was a chaotic year, but the visionaries in our industry pushed forward. Here at New Order, we remain confident and have exciting predictions about how the space will evolve heading into 2023. Part one of our 2023 thesis is live.” — more
TCG Crypto Year in Review / The TCG Team — “With over a year of the fund underway, we are excited to share with you our first Year in Review letter surrounding our portfolio and key areas of focus. In this letter, we outline our thesis for how we’ve invested over the last year, the areas where we’ve worked to build stronger points of view, and where we’re excited to spend time in 2023.” — more
The POAP Vending Machine: a medium dive into the collaboration of IYK and POAP / 0xone2three.eth — “Similar to G Money’s Prada device you put your phone near it [an IYK device] and a notification would pop up to claim a POAP. A POAP vending machine. Simple and quick, this device made the claiming process seamless. 120 people received the Glitch Opening Weekend POAP, and the gallery can now choose a strategy to reward those holders who showed up to support them in West Texas.” — more
Robots have been about to take all the jobs for more than 200 years / Louis Anslow — “Technology has always triggered fears of mass unemployment. In 1811 it was the Luddites, who assumed they were done for. In the 1930s, it was vaunted economist John Maynard Keynes, who implicated technology as one reason for the unemployment of the Great Depression … Is it different this time? Or are we giving in to the same fear of technological change and progress as people have for the last century?” — more
The End of Programming / Matt Welsh — “Programming will be obsolete. I believe the conventional idea of "writing a program" is headed for extinction, and indeed, for all but very specialized applications, most software, as we know it, will be replaced by AI systems that are trained rather than programmed.” — more
The Fappening / Matti, Rapolas, + Cam at Zee Prime Capital — “Fat Protocols was written by Joel Monegro in 2016. So far it has been a decent investment thesis (if you picked well), however, we feel in the long term it does not play out so cleanly in terms of protocols accruing the majority of the value created. Let’s talk about the Fat App (FAPP) Thesis, for which the hypothesis goes: Most value accrues to an app (or a few apps) that provides a broad range of products.” — more
BasedAF (🤝) / BasedHeads Mint — BasedAF, a creative metaverse content studio, announced the details for the upcoming BasedHeads NFT mint. “BasedAF is taking the story of the Metaverse to new heights with jawdropping stunts and challenges to rival the top creators on YouTube. The BasedHeads represent the audience, the Superfans. Owning a BasedHead is owning a VIP ticket to the show.” Allowlist mint on January 6th, with a supply of 10k — more
Blur / Royalty Policy Updates — Blur announced a new royalty policy designed to solve problems related to on-chain royalties being circumventable, markets gravitating towards efficiency, and new marketplaces avoiding royalties altogether to stimulate growth. The policy will enforce a minimum royalty of 0.5% on immutable collections and increase over time as the program is successfully rolled out — more
Transient Labs (🤝) / 2022 NFT Wrapped — “NFT Wrapped by Transient Labs is your 2022 NFT activity in review. Curious how many NFTs you bought? How about the number of pieces you sold? See what months you degened the hardest and relive your biggest wins/losses. By connecting your wallets, you will get your own personalized NFT Wrapped video to share with the world. How was your 2022 in NFTs?” — more
Lit Protocol (🤝) / Sei Collaboration — Lit Protocol, a blockchain-agnostic MPC middleware layer used to facilitate encryption and automation for web3 apps, announced a collaboration with the sovereign Cosmos app-chain Sei. The collab is aimed at building new primitives for DeFi such as on-chain limit orders, auto-compounding of staking rewards, automated / recurring payments, and decentralized MPC custody — more
KuCoin / NFT Fractionalization — Kucoin, a crypto exchange claiming more than 20M members, launched a new NFT fractionalization program for “blue-chip NFTs”. Moonbirds, Cool Cats, Azuki, and Chromie Squiggles, amongst others, are available for trade as ERC-20 tokens — more
DeFiLlama / DEX — DefiLlama’s new DEX aggregator recorded the second-highest volume among all applications using 0x’s liquidity aggregation tech, which allows users to obtain efficient pricing due to integrations across eight other aggregators. The exchange is still in beta, but opened up to the public on Jan. 2nd — more
Dean Blacc / Art Blocks (🤝): Good, Computer — “To what degree can we teach a computer to make a painting? One that resembles creation from the imperfect hand of a human. Here, the computer attempts to hide itself from the viewer in the details, such as inconsistent borders or uneven layers of paint. Intentional flaws that a human might make unintentionally. Good, Computer is an exploration of not only how small cumulative inaccuracies create complete images, but also the forms and harmonies that those images evoke.” 75 pieces, minting Jan. 6th at 10:00am PT — more
0xdgb / SuperRare (🤝): Blank Canvas (Genesis Auction) — 0xdgb, a longtime illustrator with a recognizable minimalist aesthetic, announced their SuperRare Genesis Drop. The auction starts January 6th at 3pm EST — more
Amber Vittoria / Quantum Art (🤝): Khuwab ki Tabeer — “Khuwab ki Tabeer ‘Interpretation of a dream’ is Maliha Abidi’s latest series. This collection of 4 NFTs follows a story of a South-Asian girl and all the things she dreams about because to her, there is no limit, restrictions or barriers that stand in her way of achieving any of it.” 4 pieces, minting January 10th — more
CroissantEth / 2022: A Trip Down Memory Lane
Vitalik / Extensional Definition of a Good Crypto Future
Sam Spike / NFTs Transforming Collectors into Fans
Bionic / On Asia Leading the Next Crypto Cycle
PROOF (🤝) / Grails III 👀
Transient Labs (🤝) / 2022 Recap Video 🔥
angelbaby3045.eth x Mija x Hume (🤝) / Soundxyz (🤝) Drop
BasedAF (🤝) / TrashLand Awaits
proto.eth / Crypto Predictions 2023
DCinvestor / On Delegate.cash
mordicai jones / Discovering Squiggle 9294
Grant Yun / Mona (🤝) Space: Grant Yun Edition
Zachary Dash / 103 Most Common Web3 Mistakes
Da Vinci / Are Chromie Squiggles the Grail of Generative Art?
CyberBrokers / 2022 Wrapped in Stats
Joshua Browder / AI Deepfakes
🤝 = Collab+Currency Portfolio Company
Curated by @Collab_Currency x @_cutbank
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