Delegate Cash (🤝) / $430M+ Milestone < 4 Months — Delegate Cash, a decentralized registry that acts as a crypto power-of-attorney allowing users to link cold wallets to hot wallets, now protects more than $430M+ worth of NFTs. In the span of about four months, the three-person team has seen adoption from leading NFT communities and platforms like Art Blocks, Yuga Labs, and most recently OpenSea — more
Hume (🤝) / Blocktones Acquisition — Hume, a web3 record label and entertainment company, announced it acquired Blocktone, a web3 music startup founded by Grammy-winning, multi-platinum producer Gino Borri. The acquisition will bring Blocktones’ open-sourced generative audio collections to the Hume platform, enabling new pathways for its virtual artists — more
China’s “Instagram” / Enables NFTs — The Chinese version of Instagram, known as Little Red Book, has enabled an NFT integration for its more than 200M monthly active users. The partnership utilizes the Conflux Network, a layer1 blockchain, and allows users to feature NFTs within their profile pages. “Despite its hard stance on cryptocurrencies, the Chinese government has shown a willingness to explore NFTs.” — more
Coinbase / Pauses NFT Drops — Coinbase NFT announced it will pause new NFT drops after artist Jessica Yatrofsky said her upcoming collection would no longer be taking place on the platform. Coinbase noted, “We're pausing drops for now to focus on other areas within Coinbase NFT, but we're not shutting down the Coinbase NFT marketplace.” — more
Yuga Labs / Co-Founder Takes Leave of Absence — Wylie Aronow of Yuga Labs — the team behind Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks — recently shared he will be stepping away to prioritize his health after receiving a congestive heart failure diagnosis. Aranow confirmed he will remain a board member and strategic advisor — more
eBay / NFTs with Notable Live — Notable Live, a platform offering interactive virtual events, has partnered with eBay and plans to leverage NFTs to provide sports fans the opportunity to connect more directly with players. eBay’s venture capital arm, eBay Ventures, previously led Notable Live’s Series A round — more
Toyota / Intracompany DAO — Toyota is sponsoring a web3 hackathon on the multi-chain smart contract network known as Astar. “Developers will build an intracompany DAO support tool on the Astar Network – one of the first parachains to come to the Polkadot ecosystem – which will allow more efficient business decision-making and team management for Toyota.” — more
California DMV / On-chain Car Titles — The CA DMV is collaborating with Tezos and software development firm Oxhead Alpha to build an on-chain DMV database that aims to digitize car titles and streamline title transfers. The hope is to have relevant data on-chain within the next three months, followed by the development of consumer-facing apps — more
Damus App / “Twitter Killer” — The Damus App, a decentralized social network powered by Nostr and coined as a “Twitter Killer”, launched on the Apple App Store. Twitter co-founder and Nostr contributor Jack Dorsey shared the news with his 6.5 million followers and labeled it a “milestone” moment for open-source protocols — more
Pantera / Liquid Fund — Pantera, a crypto-focused VC firm, reported losing 80% of its value in its liquid token fund in 2022. According to a recent investor call the liquid fund, which at the time had ~$200M AUM, saw a 23% decline in November following the implosion of FTX. The fund rebounded ~47% in January — more
Rally Blockchain / Shutting Down — The Rally sidechain, launched in 2018, has announced it is shutting down. Rally was built as a place for creators and brands to launch social tokens and connect directly with their communities. The Rally team cited that “challenges and macro headwinds are too overwhelming to overcome in the current environment.” — more
VitaDAO / $4M Raised — VitaDAO, a DAO focused on raising funds for research into extending human life, raises round from Pfizer Ventures, Shine Capital, L1 Digital, BeakerDAO, Spaceship DAO; and former Coinbase CTO Balaji Srinivasan. Previous investors include Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin — more
Sovereign Labs / $7.4M Raised — Sovereign Labs, an ecosystem of interoperable and scalable rollups that can run on any blockchain, raises seed round led by Haun Ventures with participation from Maven 11, 1KX, Robot Ventures, and Plaintext Capital — more
Oh Baby Games / $6M Raised — Oh Baby Games, a game studio building games that feature beloved and recognizable characters from crypto Twitter, raises seed round co-led by eGirl Capital and Synergis Capital, with participation from gmjp, Merit Circle DAO, and angels including Kevin Lin (Co-founder of Twitch) and Santiago Santos, among others — more
Squid / $3.5M Raised — Squid, an Axelar-based protocol that connects users and developers with cross-chain liquidity, raises seed round led by North Island Ventures, with participation from Distributed Global, Fabric Ventures, Galileo, Chapter One and Noble Capital, among others. Axelar (🤝) participated as a strategic investor — more
Addressable / $7.5M Raised — Addressable, a startup aiming to create an easier way to market to anonymous crypto users, raises seed round co-led by Fabric Ventures and Viola Ventures, with participation from North Island Ventures and Mensch Capital Partners — more
Senken / $7.5M Raised — Senken, an easy-to-use platform to access a selection of climate assets for transparent climate actions and finance, raises round led by Obvious Ventures, with participation from Offline Ventures, Inflection, and Kraken Ventures, along with other existing investors including Climate Capital — more
Rysk Finance / $1.4M Raised — Rysk, an on-chain market maker for DeFi derivatives, raises pre-seed round led by Lemniscap, with participation from Encode Club, Ascensive Assets, Starbloom, Yunt Capital, Manifold Trading, and several angels — more
Sec3 / $10M Raised — Sec3, a web3 security firm serving projects in the Solana ecosystem, raises seed round led by Multicoin, with participation from Sanctor Capital and Essence VC, alongside angels Santiago Santos, a former ParaFi Capital partner, and Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana — more
Archimedes / $4.9M Raised — Archimedes, a DeFi lending and borrowing marketplace, raises seed round led by Hack VC, with participation from Uncorrelated Ventures, Psalion, Truffle Ventures, Cogitent Ventures, Haven VC, and Palsar among others — more
Fractionalizing NFTs: The Struggle And The Cure / Arad — “The cure is for the fractionalized NFT to stand proud on its own. To not simply serve as a second-hand price derivative. The speculation and price discovery is a crucial part of the experience. And the feeling of being part of something special, something incomparable, unanchored — is the core, the essence of, an exciting crypto asset. It’s part of the journey.” — more
Super Liquid NFTs / Hive Mind x Flamingo DAO — “Navigating the wild and unpredictable NFT market can feel like a dizzying game of chance, where new projects and creators appear out of nowhere, and it's hard to know which will soar and which will flop. But as the market matures, a roadmap to success is emerging, unfolding in four distinct phases: ascension, endurance and separation, course correction, and super liquid systems.” — more
Liquid Delegates: The next NFT primitive / foobar — “Liquid delegates (LDs) wrap delegation rights into a tradeable NFT. This gives you a trustless way to trade airdrop claims and more. It grants no-liquidation, no-risk NFT rentals automatically compatible with all standard ERC721s.” — more
Leaders at Fox, Universal, and Hollywood companies are bullish on web3 storytelling / Elaine Low — “Hollywood largely used NFTs in 2022 as digital collectibles to build fandoms for everything from Fox's "The Masked Singer" to "Law & Order" producer Dick Wolf's latest project. Justin Alanis, the founder of StoryCo (🤝), believes NFTs are going to evolve into something "much, much, much bigger than we ever imagined" because they offer an "amazing way to represent your cultural values through art and also embed utility into them."”— more
The State of Digital Fashion (pt.1) / Dani Loftus — “Two years ago, I wrote The What, How and Why of Virtual Fashion. As the first long-form explainer of what Digital Fashion was, and why anyone should care, I intended to create the cornerstone of Digital Fashion 101. But, in an industry that moves at the speed of singularity, one inevitably has to repave. So WTF is Digital Fashion in 2023?” — more
From Disillusionment to Productivity / Saneel Sreeni — “What has crypto proven better at than existing technologies and systems? What are the significant barriers to the adoption of crypto? What emergent trends can we expect as a consequence?” — more
Commerce In The Fluid Web / Matti at Zee Prime — “There was an idea of Web 3 before crypto monopolized this buzzword. I came across a Wired article from 2014 and tracked the term back to a 2007 blog from the same author. What Sramana Mitra referred to as Web 3 back then is much different from the current framing … Let’s revise this thesis from 2014.” — more
Unlocking Proof of Humanity with Non-Financial NFTs / Charlie Durbin x Lens — “We roughly think of non-financial NFTs as falling into one of three categories: credentialing, brand distribution, and utilitarian, with many issued as open editions. In each case, the primary purpose of the NFT is to collateralize a wallet with a trait. As a wallet collects more traits, the more its identity comes into focus.” — more
The NFT Community Reacts to the Rise of Open Editions / Eric James Beyer — “So far, the defining Web3 conversation of 2023 has been about open editions … At this point, nearly all of the world’s most prominent NFT artists, collectors, and builders have voiced their opinions on the rise of open editions — addressing everything from the benefit or harm it might be causing in the ecosystem to what it means for artists and collectors going forward. Here’s what they’re saying and doing.” — more
Chapter 5: The Cost of Intelligence / Modulus Labs — “So what do we do if we want to bring the AI paradigm into the trustless world? Are we going to roll-over and give up? Of course not… wait a minute! Roll-over… Give up… If rollup services like Starkware (🤝), Matter Labs, and others are using zero-knowledge proofs to massively scale compute while preserving cryptographic security, could we do the same for AI?” — more
The Generative AI Revolution in Games / James Gwertzman and Jack Soslow — “There hasn’t been a technology this revolutionary for gaming since real-time 3D. Spend any time at all talking to game creators, and the sense of excitement and wonder is palpable. So where is this technology going? And how will it transform gaming? First, though, let’s review what is Generative AI?” — more
Big Ideas 2023 / Ark Invest — “This annual research report seeks to highlight the technological breakthroughs evolving today and creating the potential for super-exponential growth tomorrow.” — more
OpenSea / Delegate Cash (🤝) — OpenSea announced a new ‘3hr Hold Period’ powered by Delegate Cash’s decentralized registry that aims to mitigate theft on its platform. The three-hour timeframe will allow theft victims and the greater community to flag stolen items and therefore stop scammers from quickly reselling items — more
Axie Infinity (🤝) / MetaLend (🤝) Partnership — MetaLend, a project enabling users to take loans against in-game assets, partners with Axie Infinity’s Ronin Network to allow players to borrow up to 30% against their assets or stake their assets for a reward. Currently, 1,587 Ronin-based NFTs are being used as collateral on MetaLend — more
Immutable X / Introducing Passport — Immutable X will soon launch Passport — an all-in-one solution for gaming studios looking to onboard gamers into web3. The new tool is a non-custodial wallet, gamer profile, and authentication solution, similar to an Xbox Gamertag or an Apple ID — more
Shibuya / NFT Holders — Shibuya, a web3 video platform co-founded by digital artist pplpleasr, revealed its upcoming video production will be shaped by its NFT holder community, Steve Aoki, and Seth Green. Over six weeks, an interactive production process will unfold in collaboration with the community, with NFT holders voting on how each scene plays out — more
L'Oréal’s GORJS DAO / First Drop — L’Oreal-owned NYX Professional Makeup is launching a beauty “incubator” in the form of a DAO called GORJS (pronounced gorgeous). The DAO aims to explore “what beauty will be in the metaverse, and lead the cultural conversation as it relates to the values of diversity, inclusivity, and accessibility.” The DAO’s first drop, FKWME NFT passes, recently dropped at a price of 0.19 ETH — more
Coinbase Wallet / NFT Scam Protection — Coinbase Wallet, a non-custodial wallet offered by Coinbase, announces a new scam protection feature that shows a visual representation of a transaction so that users can more easily detect scams. The new features are available for transactions on Ethereum and Polygon — more
Blowfish Protect / Security Browser Extension — Blowfish, a startup building solutions to protect web3 users against theft + fraud, launched a new security browser extension. The browser aims to warn users if they are signing a suspicious transaction and provide a clear explanation of each transaction before signing — more
Cool Cats / Multi-chain + Customization — The founders behind the Cool Cats NFT project unveiled new branding and announced the expansion to chains beyond Ethereum. Additionally, Cool Cats and Cool Pets NFT holders were airdropped a free Fracture NFT, which have been described as “dynamic NFTs that enable a new storytelling experience via digital collectibles.” — more
Roope Rainisto / BrainDrops: Life In West America — “Life In West America is a post-photography project investigating America: the land as a concept, as an ideal, and the stories of the people inhabiting the space. The collection combines the visual language of traditional photography with the limitless artifice of AI, capturing a moment in time and in generative technology. Each of the pieces is generated using custom-trained models specific to this project.” 500 pieces, Feb. 8th, pre-mint at 10am PT, public 10:30am PT, 0.1 ETH — more
Entangled Others / Verse: Intertidal Samples — “The continuum of what we sample stretches beyond the realm of the fathomable, yet even when we extract but a single drop of water, we find within it entire ecosystems of life and interactions. This series acts as a multitude of samples drawn from the same intertidal zone of artificial life, deceptively singular and delimited, patiently awaiting the chance to diffuse into something greater.” 64 pieces, minting February 3rd — more
Orr Kislev + Alona Rodeh / Art Blocks (🤝): Jenim — “In an epic attempt to crack the genetic code of denim, Jenim playfully but carefully observes and translates the warp and weft of denim into generative code, weaving unique iterations of irregular, distorted, or hyper-realistic textile crops.” 350 pieces, Feb. 27th at 8:00am PT — more
0xdgb / ‘The Collector’ x Squiggle 🌈 Trade
Richard Chen / NFTfi (🤝) 📈
Hume (🤝) / Partnership with Creative Artists Agency
StoryCo (🤝) / Community Growth 🔥
purplehat / Art Blocks (🤝) Product + Engineering Update
Derek Edws / Adam Lindemann x Venus Over Manhattan
MoonOverlord / Blur Airdrop
PandaJackson / Blur’s Market Moves
Arad / Bitcoin(!) NFT Hub
Curio / Fully On-chain Game: Treaty
Moonbirds / PROOF (🤝) of Conference Mint via Delegate Cash (🤝)
poopie / Doodles x Delegate Cash (🤝)
BasedAF (🤝) / $100k Donation to Charity ❤️
Sam Williams / Arweave Transactions at ATHs
fisher8 / The State of Crypto and Sport
Lasso / Natural Language Search for On-chain Data
Reed Albergotti / Open AI Coding Push
🤝 = Collab+Currency Portfolio Company
Curated by @Collab_Currency x @_cutbank
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