Reddit / Super Bowl Collectibles — Reddit and the NFL have partnered to create digital collectible avatars (NFTs) leading up to this weekend’s game. The Polygon-based NFTs, which come in colors representing Kansas City and Philadelphia, are free-to-claim for Reddit users. The collection has been minted by over 1.2M Reddit users — more
Kraken / Settles Staking Charges — Kraken, a crypto exchange founded in 2011, agreed to settle charges brought forth by the SEC, which claimed the exchange failed to register the offer and sale of its crypto asset staking-as-a-service program. Kraken will pay a $30M fine and has agreed to end its on-chain staking services for U.S. clients, though it did not admit or deny the allegations — more
Hermès / Wins ‘MetaBirkin’ NFTs Trial — Hermès, a French luxury brand, won its lawsuit against the digital artist behind the “MetaBirkin” NFTs. In one of the first IP trials involving NFTs, the jury found artist Mason Rothschild's unauthorized "MetaBirkins" were misleading to consumers and therefore the NFTs violated Hermès’ rights to the “Birkin” trademark, resulting in $133k in damages being paid by the artist — more
Bitcoin Network / NFT Activity Spikes — Bitcoin network activity has spiked to a level not seen since China banned crypto miners in May 2021. The increase in activity stems from the introduction of the Ordinals protocol, which allows NFTs to be stored on the BTC chain. Sales of early collection, ‘Ordinal Punks’, have exceeded 9.5 BTC or $200k+ — more
China / Approves Blockchain Research Hub — China’s Ministry of Science and Technology approved a new National Blockchain Technology Innovation Centre. The research center will focus on finding ways to use the technology for industrial applications, as well as use cases for the national economy — more
Sandbox Metaverse / Saudi Arabia Digital Gov’t Authority — The Digital Government Authority of Saudi Arabia has partnered with the metaverse platform The Sandbox. Announced at the Leap 2023 conference this week, the partnership is meant for “exploring, advising and supporting one another in metaverse development” — more
DCG + Genesis / Agreement with Creditors — Digital Currency Group and its bankrupt Genesis subsidiaries reach an agreement with creditors for a restructuring plan. DCG intends to sell its subsidiary Genesis' crypto trading business and its lending arm Gemini has agreed to contribute $100M to compensate Earn users — more
Google / Meet Bard — Google announced it will release its chatbot named Bard in the coming weeks. Bard uses a smaller version of LaMDA, Google's powerful AI model. In contrast to ChatGPT, Bard will enhance conventional search by synthesizing responses for questions with multiple answers — more
PayPal / Customers’ Crypto Deposits — According to recent annual filings with the SEC, PayPal held $604M of customers’ crypto at the end of 2022. Roughly 90% of the holdings were held between the two largest cryptocurrencies by market value: $291M in BTC and $250M in ETH — more
Mino Games (🤝) / $15M Raised — Mino Games, the creators of games like Mino Monsters and Cat Game, raise a Series A round led by Standard Crypto, with participation from Collab+Currency, Boost VC, Earl Grey Capital, and Konvoy Ventures. The team’s new web3 gaming multiverse is called Dimensionals and has nearly 189k followers on Twitter — more
Finiliars / $500k Raised — Finiliars, an NFT collection whose emotions are tied to various crypto coins, raises pre-seed round from IDEO CoLab Ventures, Wave Ventures, Deafbeef, Ben Roy, Geebz, and many others — more
Cub3 / $6.5M Raised — Cub3, a startup building a consumer loyalty program that aims to automate web3 rewards based on real-world activities, raises Series A co-led by Bitkraft and Fabric Ventures, with participation from CMT Digital, Red Beard Ventures, and Geometry Labs — more
Sesame Labs / $4.5M Raised — Sesame Labs, a startup aiming to provide a decentralized solution to web3 marketing, raises round co-led by Wing Venture Capital and Patron, with participation from South Park Commons, Script Capital, DoubleJump, Forte, MoonFire, Samsung, Twin Ventures, and angels including Balaji Srinivasan — more
Vault / $4M Raised — Vault, a Solana-based music platform built on web3 rails, raises Series A round led by Placeholder, with participation from Alleycorp and Bullpen Capital — more
Webacy / $4M Raised — Webacy, a startup building security solutions for self-custodial wallets, raises seed round led by gmjp, with participation from Gary and AJ Vaynerchuck, as well as Mozilla ventures — more
Space ID / $10M Raised — Space ID, a universal name service network for web3 identity, raises strategic round led by Polychain Capital and dao5 — more
Cenoa / $7M Raised — Cenoa, a crypto wallet offering borderless banking solutions, raises seed round co-led by Quiet Capital and Underscore VC. Other commitments came from Human Capital, Ulu Ventures, Acrew Capital and Collective Spark — more
VRRB Labs / $1.4M Raised — VRRB Labs, a Layer 1 blockchain developer, raises pre-seed round at a $20M valuation from Jump Crypto, Big Brain Holding, and Taureon — more
Storing Value in Digital Objects / Derek Edws — “While the digital asset ecosystem is still only a decade old, I believe we’re in the midst of a fundamental, once-in-human-history transition from physical stores of value to digital stores of value. And a growing number of unique digital objects may start to serve this important role, acting as trust-minimized wealth preservation for a global, 24/7, internet economy.” — more
Deafbeef: For The Love Of Tinkering / Wallace Morgan x Noise DAO (🤝) — “Playing with the chaos and control of generative systems, Deafbeef’s ideas always seem to be both highly intricate and refreshingly straight-forward. The conceptual nature of his work adds layers of meaning, while the art and music manages to speak for itself. “I think I've come to accept, and admit, that ‘Artist’ is an okay label for me–although I wouldn't have thought that previously. I'm probably most comfortable with ‘Tinkerer’.” — more
Towards Crypto Literacy / Gaby Goldberg — “The things that make crypto more “mainstream” — hyped NFT projects, fiat onramps, DeFi savings accounts, and more — are often exactly the things that make it more dangerous for retail investors. Today, the odds of success in crypto are wildly in favor of those with highly specialized technical & data analytical skills. This is why I am excited about consumer products that make crypto human-readable and analyzable. These products level the playing field, taking something with a technical UI/UX and making it user-friendly.” — more
The Future of NFTs? Legal Experts Respond to Hermès Lawsuit / Langston Thomas — “While many expected a ruling stating that the sale of the NFTs violated Hermès’ rights to the “Birkin” trademark, the finding that Rothschild’s NFTs aren’t protected speech under the First Amendment understandably stirred up a bit of conversation throughout Web3. The situation — and what it means for the future of Web3 — is best distilled through the reactions of the lawyers and attorneys with an understanding of the case.” — more
The Great Reset: Your 2023 Guide to Web3 Games / Delphi Digital x Naavik — “Despite the perceived doom and gloom across the web3 gaming space, we remain encouraged by the massive talent influx to the sector. Both publicly and behind closed doors many of the world’s greatest game creators have become fascinated with this new design space – for good reason. Crypto unlocks digital property rights, verifiable secondary market liquidity, community governance, shared ownership structures, and significantly enhanced funding options for developers.” — more
Top 10 Trends in 2023: An Overview by Hashed / Simon Seojoon Kim — “As an early-stage venture investor, knowing and illuminating what we expect for the future is more crucial than anything else. Hashed has debated and elaborated on which area we are excited about in the forthcoming season, and this is the list of detailed verticals we brought to the table.” — more
Deca (🤝) / Deca Eternal Collection of Art [DECA] — Deca has launched the DECA (Deca Eternal Collection of Art), a new kind of public museum that's curated by the community and built on crypto principles. If you're interested in getting involved please reach out to @ bonafidehan on Twitter — more
Mona (🤝) / Monaverse Development Kit — Mona, a 3D world-building platform and web3 social network for the metaverse, launched an upgraded SDK called the Monaverse Development Kit — enabling builders a powerful new way to monetize their own 3D assets, build in-game economies, and create interactive experiences in any of Mona’s immersive spaces — more
Blur / Airdrop Feb. 14th — Blur, a high-powered NFT marketplace for pro traders, is launching its token next Tuesday via airdrop to users who have traded on the platform in recent months. Blur has topped daily trade volume across the NFT sector every day throughout February so far, averaging roughly $14.3M compared to OpenSea’s $11.3M — more
Levels Art / On-chain NFT Mini Games —Levels is a decentralized retro arcade with playable NFTs and is dropping its first collection on Feb. 16th called Cloud Poppers by artist Bryan Brinkman. Levels aims to be the hub for on-chain generative art mini-games that immerse players in a beautiful piece of art that’s also an interactive video game— more
iyk (🤝) / 2-Tap Claim — iyk, a company building products that verify IRL ownership and attendance, launched a new model called the 2-Tap Claim. The new model requires people to have sustained access to the physical item in order to claim the linked token. The 2-Tap Claim model promotes truer possession of an item — more
Friends with Benefits (🤝) / FWB Social Platform — “Today FWB is launching the first iteration of our own social software. It’s an app-based platform where our members can convene, collaborate, share, and socialize. It’s a space that’s ours, with much less noise, that we all own and govern. No aggressive advertisers, no algorithms, no spam bots and shillers. It’s just us, with our friends.” — more
Escher / Marketplace for Fine Art Editions — Escher, a curated marketplace for fine art editions, comes out of stealth and aims to provide an artist-first, user-first platform that curates all editions ever created by an artist (regardless of platform or smart contract). Escher is being built by the team at Tessera — a platform offering collectors the ability to co-own NFTs — more
Floor (🤝) x Decentral Games (🤝) / New Wearable Drop — Floor, a mobile app offering a powerful NFT portfolio tracker, announced a partnership with metaverse poker platform Decentral Games. Community members who signed up were able to claim a free wearable NFT that enables access to enter three ICE Poker tournaments for free — more
OpenSea / Seaport Aggregator — OpenSea launched an experimental program to aggregate listing from marketplaces and projects built on top of Seaport — an open-source protocol for buying & selling NFTs. The new listings will include Music NFTs from Sound (🤝) and generative art from Sansa — more
Balaji Srinivasan / Network State Podcast — Balaji Srinivasan launched his new podcast called Network State. The first episode features Vitalik Buterin and the discussion riffs on how to start new countries, improve yourself, and upgrade Ethereum — more
Vertical Crypto Art x Art Blocks (🤝) Engine / Companions of Code — Vertical Crypto Art, a curatorial house for on-chain art + culture, announced its official integration with Art Blocks Engine. The partnership will enable VCA to bring long-form generative art collections to the VCA platform. The exhibition Companions of Code, curated by Micol Ap founder and CEO of VCA, will open IRL in London from February 10-23 at The NFT Gallery + also mint online — more
Rob Woodcox / Quantum Art (🤝): Bodies of Light — “Raising consciousness and conversation around the intersection between human experience and nature Rob Woodcox' Bodies of Light seeks to celebrate that which brings us all closer to each other and acknowledge the many voices that make up society.” Five-piece collection, auctioning Feb. 11th at 8am PT — more
Mount Vitruvius / Art Blocks (🤝): Renders Game — “Renders Game is a note to myself on creativity. I will often believe strongly in an idea, yet, once realised, and I'm confronted with the reality of the output, it leaves me unsatisfied. So I take it apart, find a detail that I love, and grow something new from that tiny piece. It's a constant process of discovery.” 325 pieces, minting Feb. 13th at 10am PT — more
Derek Edws / Storing Value in Digital Objects 🧵
Cozomo Medici / Weekend Reading Assignment
memphismantis.eth / Top NFT Sales this Week
Deca (🤝) / Fresh Update on Decagons
ChrisF / Theory on Life In West America
cutbank / On Life in West America
Arad / In the BTC NFT Trenches
Bullkis.eth / Bridging ETH NFTs to Bitcoin NFTs 👀
Dani Loftus / 🧵 On Digital Fashion in 2023
Blur / Blur Bidding Pools ATH
Brenden Mulligan / Premint + Vulcan Integrations w/ Delegate Cash (🤝)
Conlan Rios / Airdropping Utility
Mona (🤝) / The Mona Grants Program
Othersidemeta / Otherside: Legends of the Mara
0xngmi / NFT Loan Aggregator
Kanpai Pandas / Partnership with UFC Fighter Jon Jones
🤝 = Collab+Currency Portfolio Company
Curated by @Collab_Currency x @_cutbank
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