Blur (🤝) / Introducing Blend — Blur launched Blend — “a flexible and permissionless floating-rate lending protocol that can support arbitrary collateral with no oracle dependencies, and allows whatever interest rates and loan-to-value ratios the market will bear.” At the time of writing, more than 20,000 ETH have been loaned across nearly 1,500 loans — more
Cryptoys (🤝) x Disney / Star Wars NFTs — Disney partnered with Cryptoys to release Star Wars NFTs. Cryptoys will sell limited-edition digital toys featuring iconic characters like Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Darth Vader. The NFTs are powered by Dapper Labs' Flow blockchain and can be purchased using Apple Pay and Google Pay — more
Stripe / Expands Crypto Onramp — Stripe introduced a fiat-to-crypto onramp for web3 companies, facilitating more seamless crypto purchases for US customers. They offer two options: an embeddable widget for websites or apps and a Stripe-hosted onramp — more
Venmo / Crypto Transfers — Venmo introduced a crypto transfer feature, allowing users to easily transfer crypto using Venmo or PayPal to external wallets and exchanges. Crypto transfers will be rolled out to Venmo customers starting in May 2023 — more
Sotheby’s / Secondary NFT Marketplace — Sotheby's launched a secondary marketplace for fine art NFTs as an expansion of its metaverse platform. The marketplace, built on Ethereum and Polygon, features a curated selection of high-profile web3 artists. The launch features works from 13 prominent artists, such as Tyler Hobbs, XCOPY, and Claire Silver — more
Adidas x Tokenproof / Three-Year Partnership — Adidas partnered with Tokenproof for a three-year collaboration to boost its web3 presence and offer access based on its ‘ALTS by Adidas’ collection. The Adidas ‘Confirmed’ app integrates Tokenproof's authentication tech, allowing users to connect wallets and confirm ALTs holdings, which then offer token-gated access to special collabs and merch — more
Coinbase / Perpetual Futures — Coinbase International launched perpetual futures for non-US institutional traders, offering up to 5x leverage and API trading access. The new exchange, established in Bermuda, will initially list BTC and ETH perpetual futures, settling all trades in USDC — more
Sports Illustrated / NFT Ticketing — Sports Illustrated Tickets (SI Tickets) introduced Box Office — an NFT ticketing platform built on Polygon. The platform, which is part of SI Tickets' secondary marketplace, will cater to smaller community events rather than major sports and music events, targeting the self-service event market — more
World’s Richest Man / Collecting NFTs — Bernard Arnault, the world's richest man and owner of 75 luxury brands, also has a collection of NFTs. Despite past comments showing hesitancy toward the technology, he recently confirmed participation in the NFT space by sharing his OpenSea page — more
Solana Foundation / NFT Showdown — Solana Foundation's "NFT Showdown" aims to attract creators building NFT projects with real-world utility in industries like fashion, entertainment, and gaming — more
Crypto ‘Shark Tank’ / New Show — CoinMarketCap, a crypto price tracking site, is partnering with web3 entertainment company Hello Labs to launch a reality TV competition show called "Killer Whales." Inspired by Shark Tank, the show will feature entrepreneurs pitching projects to judges comprising entrepreneurs, influencers, and web3 founders — more
Alibaba Cloud / Avalanche Partnership — Alibaba Cloud introduced Cloudverse on Avalanche — “a one-stop solution for businesses to create and manage their metaverse spaces.” The platform aims to offer fast development, high throughput, and an open ecosystem with “professional land planning and governance” — more
Entendre Finance / $4M Raised — Entendre Finance, a NYC-based automated end-to-end accounting and bookkeeping solution for web3 businesses, raises seed round led by Basis Set, with participation from Valhalla, Caffeinated, Moonpay, Alumni, MDig, and Alpine — more
FARE Protocol / $6.2M Raised — FARE, a startup building ‘probability contracts for decentralized apps’, raises seed round co-led by Goat Capital and C Squared Ventures, with participation from 6th Man Ventures, Arrington Capital, Eniac Ventures, Spark Digital Capital, Morningstar Ventures, and others — more
Aki Protocol / $40M Val — Aki Protocol, a data-driven influencer network for web3, raises seed round led by Emoote and Mask Network, with participation from MZ Web3 Fund, Incuba Alpha, Meteorite Labs, CatcherVC, Alchemy Pay, Futurism Labs, Oxbull, and others — more
zkLink / $10M Raised — zkLink, a startup building multi-chain zk-rollup trading infrastructure for DeFi and NFTs, raises strategic round from Coinbase Ventures, Ascensive Assets, Big Brain, and others — more
Vibe / $4M Raised — Vibe, a platform that provides tools to help creatives customize and manage NFTs, raises seed round from Alchemy, Aglae Ventures, P Nation, and others — more
Giddy / $6.9M Raised — Giddy, a startup building a recoverable self-custodial crypto wallet, raises round from Pelion Venture Partners, Peak Capital Partners, Clarke Capital and others, including a strategic investment from Fortnite co-creator Geremy Mustard — more
A Brief History of Web3 Gaming: What We’ve Learned So Far / Sterling Campbell — “Late last year, gaming accounted for over half of blockchain activity, and $739 million has been invested in blockchain games in Q1 2023 alone. There are nearly 3.2 billion gamers worldwide, and gaming is one of the largest onboarding opportunities in crypto … To better understand the future of Web3 gaming, it’s important to examine the past decade of on-chain games and all of the learnings therein. Only by understanding where we have fallen short can we correctly navigate the future of this industry. So let’s start at the beginning.” — more
Art Blocks (🤝) on NFTfi (🤝): A community-first approach to liquidity / NFTfi — “The passionate ethos among Art Blocks collectors lends itself to long-term holds, especially as for generative art, future utility is not even part of the conversation (as opposed to PFP collections). These artworks have inherent value derived from their aesthetics, innovation, provenance, and a wide range of other creative factors. It is therefore unsurprising to see Art Blocks firmly in the top 3 all-time collections on NFTfi!” — more
One click Checkout buttons for Web3 / Joel John — “The markets are in a strange state. A prominent American bank went down since we last wrote an article. Meme coins (like PEPE and Wojak) are trending while pundits argue about whether we are in a recession. Founders I speak to have been in a long, uphill battle to close their round while new L1s have begun listing at valuations that rival the GDPs of entire countries. Nobody quite knows what’s going on. Away from the noise, I think we are in a period of intellectual renaissance in Web3. Today’s piece explores a development that makes me believe that is the case.” — more
Yuga Labs: From Nothing to The Disney of Web3 in 2 Years / Sara Gherghelas — “From what started two years ago with boring ape JPEGs, Yuga Labs became an industry behemoth with 16 NFT collections in its portfolio. These collections are now responsible for 34.6% of all the trading volume in the NFT industry. This is a report about Yuga Labs, Bored Ape Yacht Club and the establishment of a true web3 brand.” — more
StoryCo (🤝) / The Disco Ball Research & Investigation Society — StoryCo launched an interactive prologue experience leading up to the release of Chapter 1 of THE DISCO BALL. Join the discord, claim the DBRIS role, and “earn perks and rewards by solving puzzles, finding clues, and helping to unfold the mysteries of the multiverse” — more
Seed Club (🤝) / The Consumer Crypto Accelerator — Seed Club announced The Consumer Crypto Accelerator – a program committing $2M to early-stage teams working on “building a more interesting internet.” Applications for the first cohort, starting in early June, are open until May 15. The program targets founders creating unique, onchain consumer products or experiences that leverage digital ownership and “blur the lines between builders and users or creators and audiences” — more
Axelar (🤝) / General Message Passaging — Axelar's General Message Passing (GMP) now connects Cosmos and EVM chains, offering composability for dApps across both ecosystems. Over a dozen projects are already building in the interchain between Cosmos and EVM — more
Rabbithole (🤝) / Introducing Quest Terminal — RabbitHole introduced Quest Terminal — a platform that enables high-velocity airdrops and experiments, allowing for rapid experimentation between projects and token holders. The Terminal allows for targeted allowlists, permissionless creation, and real-time quest monitoring to optimize and iterate quest designs for maximum impact — more
Le Random (🤝) / Newsletter Drop — Le Random aims to build a historically encompassing generative art collection, featuring works from three generations of artists spanning 60 years. Their latest newsletter covers updates on a new website launch and insights into their collection strategy. Upon launch, the website will include a "Collection" section, showcasing the entire range of their current collection alongside artist bios and curatorial notes — more
Nocturne / Private Accounts on Ethereum — Nocturne introduced its new Ethereum-based private accounts that use account abstraction and zero-knowledge proofs. The tech allows users to send, receive, and transact funds without exposing their addresses. Testnet launching soon, mainnet in the following months — more
Paulygon NFT Collection / ‘art that’s so bad it’s good’ — Paulygon, “the first ever fully customizable NFT on Polygon”, offers a customizable trait system with traits unlocked via ecosystem quests. With a 0.02 ETH mint price, users can personalize their NFTs through three accessory types: Basic, Commission, and Quest — more
Kazuhiro Tanimoto / Art Blocks (🤝): Memories of Digital Data — “In this work, I attempted to represent a fictional collapsed blockchain world with visuals and sound. The chain has already been abandoned, and the few nodes that remain barely alive are just maitaining their appearances. Visualizing the remnants of blocks that no longer serve their original purpose, they form something like a submerged city.” Minting May 12th, 450 pieces — more
Ferdinand Dervieux / Verse: Imperfection at Peace — “Imperfection at Peace is a quiet place, a mirror made of artificial nature, inviting the viewer to reflect on their own fragilities. Lots of artists are shy with their creative process and in-progress works. Just like us, as humans, tend to hide our weaknesses. But no matter how hard we try there are always tiny details to betray us and expose us beyond our will. Too often considered as imperfections, I believe these unique signatures are precisely where beauty lies, they are sparks of life and the time for reconciliation has come.” 128 pieces, 0.033 ETH, ~100 remaining — more
Samsy / Art Blocks (🤝): Fushi No Reality — “Fushi (Japanese for immortality / eternal life) is a concentration study to help those who might need help to slow down in their lives, those who get lost in their thoughts, and those who need a focus point to stand up. No Reality is an invitation to contemplation.” 255 pieces minting May 8th, 10:00am PT, 0.09 ETH — more
Karen / Featured #01 x Tribute Brand (🤝) 🔥 — more
Derek Edws / The Consumer Crypto Accelerator ⚡ — more
TapTap / 9dcc (🤝) x Hogwarts School of Magic 😂 — more
Kevin Rose / On Blur’s (🤝) Blend — more
punk9059 / Blur (🤝) x Blend Lending on Punks — more
EnlightenedLime / POAP (🤝) x ENS — more
jalil.eth / Delegate Cash (🤝) x Opepen Opt-ins — more
Glass Protocol (🤝) / New Era + First Drops 👀 — more
RTFKT / King James x RTFKT x Nike — more
Vulcan / Introducing the Vulcan Art Bot — more
phantom / New Features + Upgrades — more
Backpack / Public Beta Launch + Username Claim — more
Blockworks / Introducing GovHub — more
thirdweb / Introducing Wallet SDK — more
Grimes / Making AI Music w/ Grimes Using Voiceprint — more
🤝 = Collab+Currency Portfolio Company
Curated by @Collab_Currency x @_cutbank
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