Coinbase / Wallet as a Service — Coinbase introduced a scalable and secure set of wallet infrastructure APIs known as Wallet as a Service, which enables initial partners like Floor (🤝), Third Web, and Tokenproof to onboard users to web3 experiences across gaming, token-gated events, and digital marketplaces. Additionally, WaaS allows users to create, access, and restore wallets with a simple username and password (no seed phrases required) — more
Amazon / NFT Marketplace — Amazon is reportedly eyeing the launch of its NFT platform as early as April 24th. The report outlines how Amazon may enable Prime customers to purchase NFTs tied to real-world assets that are delivered to their doorstep, marking a potentially massive onboarding event into digital collectibles — more
Epic Games / Self-Publishing — Epic Games announced it will allow developers to self-publish games to the Epic Games Store, marking a big shift for the PC gaming storefront. Game developers may be drawn to publish with Epic due to its revenue share model offering developers 88% of all revenue, a step up from the 70% cut on Steam’s marketplace — more
Yuga Labs / Twelvefold Collection — The auction for Yuga Labs’ new Bitcoin NFT collection ended on Monday with a total of 3,246 bids across the 24-hour period. The 288-piece set netted $16.5M in BTC, with the highest bid coming in at ~7.1 BTC and the lowest successful bid at ~2.25 BTC — more
Grayscale / GBTC ETF Hearing — Grayscale appealed the SEC’s decision to deny the conversion of The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into an ETF. The SEC’s ruling isn’t expected to arrive for another three to six months — more
Alameda Sues / Grayscale and DCG — Alameda Research, the sister company of FTX, filed a lawsuit against Grayscale and Digital Currency Group seeking what it claims is over $250M in asset value for FTX’s customers and creditors — more
Blur (🤝) / Increasing Marketshare — Blur, an NFT marketplace for traders, accounted for 84% of all Ethereum-based NFT marketplace transactions during the first week of March. As recently as January Blur accounted for roughly 40% of transactions, but its percentage marketshare over OpenSea has since doubled — more
Warner Brothers / Immutable X Partnership — Warner Brothers announced it will migrate its web3 game, Blocklete Golf, from the Flow blockchain to the Ethereum-based scaling solution Immutable X. The move is to take advantage of the “fast transactions and gas-free NFTs minting backed by Ethereum’s robust security and decentralization.” — more
Silvergate Bank / Winds Down — Silvergate Capital Corporation, the holding company of the crypto-focused Silvergate Bank, announced its intent to wind down operations and voluntarily liquidate the banking unit — more
Silicon Valley Bank / Closed by Regulators — “Silicon Valley Bank was closed by California's financial regulator. SVB depositors "will have full access to their insured deposits no later than Monday morning," said the FDIC in an announcement. The bank held $209 billion in assets and roughly $175 billion in deposits at the end of last year.” — more
TSM Esports Team / Avalanche Subnet — TSM, a top esports team, announced a partnership with Avalanche as its exclusive blockchain partner. TSM will build out an Avalanche subnet called Blitz that will use the AVAX as a gas token to bring Blitz on-chain. Previously, TSM partnered with FTX in a deal that was valued at $210M, the largest in esports history — more
Japanese Gaming Giant / Avalanche Blockchain — GREE, a Japan-based gaming house with 30M active monthly users, pushes into web3 gaming by building a Subnet on Avalanche. GREE’s head of web3 BD said, “We don’t want our games to be impacted by other games’ traffic, so we’re planning to set up our own Subnet, which will allow us to deliver games with a reliable and fast experience for our players” — more
Scroll / $50M Raised — Scroll, an Ethereum Layer 2 network utilizing zk-rollups, raises round from Polychain Capital, Sequoia China, Bain Capital Crypto, Moore Capital Management, Variant Fund, Newman Capital, IOSG Ventures, A&T Capital, and Qiming Ventures — more
Toku / $20M Raised — Toku, a token-based payroll and tax compliance startup, raises round from GMJP, OrangeDAO, Reverie, Quantstamp, Next Web Capital, and angel investors Juan Benet (Protocol Labs) + The Winklevoss Brothers — more
Tensor / $3M Raised — Tensor, a Solana-based NFT trading platform, raises seed round led by Placeholder, with participation from Solana Ventures, Alliance DAO, Big Brain Holdings, and Solana co-founders Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal, among others — more
Republik / $3.5M Raised — Republik, a web3 content creation platform, raised seed round from 6th Man Ventures, Arcane Group, Define Ventures, Enjin, FBG Capital, Mirana Ventures, Sora Ventures, and Tron Network — more
Relai / $4.5M Raised — Relai, a bitcoin investment platform focused on the Erupean market, raises round led by Ego Death Capital, with participation from Lightning Ventures, Redalpine, Fulgur Ventures and others — more
Kresus / $25M Raised — Kresus, a web3 app that lets users mint, manage, and store digital assets, raises Series A led from Liberty City Ventures, JetBlue Ventures, Franklin Templeton, Marc Benioff, Cameron & Tyler Winklevoss, Craft Ventures, and others — more
Matchday / $21M Raised — Matchday, a web3 soccer-centric gaming startup, raises seed round led by Lionel Messi’s VC firm Play Time, with participation from Courtside Ventures, Greylock, HackVC, Capricorn Investment Group, and Horizons Ventures — more
Blockchains and the Future of Fashion / Karen Shen — “The mannequin-to-model transition kickstarted the fashion show industry. The internet kickstarted the e-commerce industry. Blockchains will kickstart the digital fashion industry. The new web3 fashion tech stack will present business opportunities to the current fashion space in ways immeasurable today. The surface area is vast, and I’m excited about what’s to come.” — more
DAOs Are Consumer Products / Seed Club (🤝) — “DAOs may be a framework for consumerizing everything. What used to be highly exclusive or strictly “professional” experiences can now – on the backs of the increased coordination and distributed ownership enabled by tokens – be offered to the masses. You can own a global brand, buy an NBA team, curate a museum, build a network state, produce a film, and manage a music star. And critically, when designed well, you can do this without feeling like you’re doing any work at all.” — more
The Taste Economy / Daisy Alioto x Dirt (🤝) — “It’s a wild time. But everything that seems to threaten lifestyle media can be used to its advantage, and the old magazine ethos of tastemaking suddenly feels relevant again. The blockchain inverts the digital advertising landscape because it makes all transactions public. Data is no longer proprietary. So if you wanted to take advantage of that information by, say, serving New Balance ads to Nike .SWOOSH token holders you would have to create real estate on the internet where people actually spend time. You know, like a publication.” — more
Everything You Need to Know Before Creating a Free NFT Collection / Bonfire (🤝) — “How can creators and brands adopt NFTs with a fanbase that may not be willing to make the leap? Enter free NFTs. By giving away NFTs for free, you and your business can increase adoption and educate the public on the power and benefits of these digital assets. In this guide, we will take a closer look at the case for free NFTs, successful examples of brands and creators using free NFTs, and how you can create a free mint NFT.” — more
Climate Meets Crypto: Regenerative Finance / New Order — “Decentralized systems have the potential to help coordinate climate cost pricing, coordination, and value transfer at scale. And as their scalability, cost-effectiveness, and throughput increase, their value for coordinating climate change will grow in tandem. ReFi is the embodiment of applying decentralized systems to the climate crisis, and we believe that standardization and tokenized asset uniformity are critical components of the effort.” — more
Le Random (🤝) / Digital Generative Art Institution — Le Random, a digital generative art institution, went live this week and stated its mission to collect, contextualize, and elevate on-chain generative art. Le Random has a long-term time horizon and is focused on collecting generative art that is historically encompassing, artist-first, and chain-agnostic. Founding partners include Collab+Currency, Rockaway, and Metaversal — more
On The Ledger Podcast / But Why Do NFTs Have Value? — “NFTs have garnered a lot of attention - but how can attention drive value, and how can we connect the attention economy to the Web3 economy? Ledger CXO Ian Roger talks with Derek Edwards, Managing Partner at Collab+Currency about the past, present & future of NFTs.” — more
The Scoop Podcast / Delegate Cash (🤝): The protocol trying to save Bored Ape owners from themselves — “In this episode, the Delegate Cash team breaks down how their protocol is making web3 safer and more secure for users, and the far-reaching implications delegation has for crypto gaming and NFT financialization.” — more
Gitcoin x Metalabel x Vitalik / NFT Drop — Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin launched a series of NFTs on the Metalabel platform in collaboration with Gitcoin. The open edition mint launched on March 1, but secondary sales volume soared following the initial sale period — more
Starbucks / The Siren Collection — “The 2,000-item “Siren Collection” features a version of the company’s iconic Siren, with the stamps priced at $100. Members of Starbucks Odyssey were able to buy two stamps.” The floor price went above $550 shortly after the drop — more
DeFi Llama / New Browser Extension — DeFi Llama launched a new browser extension that enhances Etherscan with wallet tags, improves token pricing when browsing addresses, and has a built-in protection layer to protect users from scams — more
Snoop Dogg / Web3 Co-Founder — Snoop Dogg is now a co-founder of a web3 startup called “Shiller”. The platform aims to combine web3 with live-streaming content and allows content creators to token-gate streams and promote NFTs to their fanbase — more
Candy Digital / Getty Images — Candy Digital, a digital collectibles platform and marketplace, announced the release “The ’70s Music & Culture Collection, a compilation of images of musicians and cultural icons, including Jimi Hendrix, Elvis, David Bowie, Stevie Nicks, The Rolling Stones, and several more.” The pieces will cost between $25 and $200 and will be minted on the Palm blockchain — more
Huemin / Braindrops: Materia Mania — “Materia Mania is a collection of abstract, AI generated forms set against a solid black background. This project highlights the emergent and chaotic nature of a diffusion model, that was controlled to create simple, elegant shapes and textures. The resulting "materia" is intentionally representative and aesthetically pleasing to showcase the possibilities of combining human creativity with technological advancement.” Pre-mint Noon CST on March 12th, public sale 12:30 CST— more
The Paris Opera / NFT Collection — “The Paris Opera, a haven of creativity and innovation for over 350 years, continually pushes boundaries to showcase artists and bring the best of lyric and choreographic art to the widest possible audience. By embracing blockchain technology, the Opera is inviting digital artists to reimagine its universe and empower the Web3 community to play a role in the creation of art.” Presale starts March 14, public March 15th — more
Roope Rainisto + More / Fellowship: Post Photographic Perspectives — “Post Photographic Perspectives is a collection of 1500 works. Roope Rainisto is headlining Day 1 of the collection, launching REWORLD, his latest series (500 works). Rainisto switches roles to the curator for Day 2 and showcases 10 of the finest artists from this exciting new genre of photographic images, each launching collections of 100 artworks.” March 16th: Patron Pass Auction (for early access), April 6th and 7th: Live Auction — more
Karen Shen / Blockchains + The Future of Fashion 🔥
Derek Edws / On Consumer Web3 with Ledger’s Ian Rogers
ChrisF / The Never-Ending Ascent
Claire Silver / AI Art Premiering at the Louvre!
Derek Edwards / Introducing Le Random (🤝)
Beetle / OpenSea vs. Blur (🤝) Royalty Payments
foobar / Using Delegate Cash (🤝) x Liquid Delegate to Rent NFTs
Dr. Disrespect / Digital Collectibles x Online Games
Mona (🤝) / K. Rose + Derek Edwards on the PROOF (🤝) Podcast
Sansa / PROOF (🤝) Grails Now on Sansa’s Marketplace
Flamingo DAO / Recent Acquisitions 🦩
foobar / CryptoPunk Tokenized NFT Utility w/ Liquid Delegate
Sam Williams / Arweave Transactions at ATH
NFTfi (🤝) / Daily Loan Volume of $2.4M 👀
Dani Loftus / The State of Digital Fashion Pt. 2
Invest in Music / Fans x Collectors x Music NFTs
Punks OTC / Punks on Blur (🤝): Volume > BAYC, MAYC, BAKC
🤝 = Collab+Currency Portfolio Company
Curated by @Collab_Currency x @_cutbank
If you enjoyed this edition of Digitized, please subscribe below and follow @digitizedweekly on Twitter. Let’s Form Group.
All information in this Newsletter regarding any company or investment is the sole responsibility of the company providing the information, and Collab+Currency (including its affiliates) makes no representation or warranty as to the adequacy, accuracy or completeness of such information. In no event is Collab+Currency responsible for any information contained in any links outside our website.
Collab+Currency does not offer investment advice or analysis. We do not endorse or recommend any investment, or the suitability of any investment for any particular investor. Information regarding any company or investment in this Newsletter, including any links to information on our website, should not be construed as an endorsement or recommendation of that company or investment for any purpose whatsoever, either for purposes of investment or otherwise. Any person receiving this Newsletter or accessing our website is encouraged to consult with their own financial advisor, tax advisor and/or attorney before making any decision to invest.