gm + happy new year folks.
2024 is upon us and all signs point to a big year ahead for crypto. Every week seems to embody the essence of the saying, 'there are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.' The heads down building, research, and creative effort throughout the bear is coming to fruition with new launches + collabs being revealed at a rapid clip.
The last month brought with it a wave of narratives. Some revolved around consumer adoption, with alt L1s, L2s, gaming, dApps, and memecoins at the forefront. Others were more focused on infrastructure like data availability, restaking, parallelized EVMs, and DePIN. It’s uncertain which will blossom, but it’s unquestionable that there’s a growing number of potential catalysts with each passing month.
It’s an exciting time to be in crypto. With an ETF announcement imminent, there’s a cautious optimism in the air. As you’ll read below, December brought news of airdrops, points, meme funds, acquisitions, mergers, mints, raises, cyberpunk gospel, integrations, partnerships, and more 2024 predictions than I predicted. We’ve done our best to package the most high signal content from the month 🫡
Thanks for being here. Hope you enjoy the read.
Until next month,
Sound xyz (🤝) / Soho (🤝) Acquisition — Sound, a web3 music platform, acquired Soho to enhance mobile experiences for music enthusiasts. The acquisition aims to deepen artist-listener connections and financially empower artists through innovative social features geared toward the web3 music space — more
Coinbase / Money Transfers on Popular Apps — Coinbase is launching a service that enables customers to send money to each other via links on messaging apps like WhatsApp, iMessage, and Telegram, as well as social platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, and Instagram. Both sender and receiver must use Coinbase Wallet — more
Avalanche Foundation / Announces “Culture Catalyst” Program — The Avalanche Foundation will purchase Avalanche-based meme coins under its "Culture Catalyst" program. The Foundation reiterated that memecoins represent "the collective spirit and shared interests of diverse crypto communities." — more
FIFA / NFTs on Polygon — FIFA is releasing 100 digital collectibles offering a chance at 2026 World Cup final tickets, and moving its NFTs from Algorand to Polygon. After the initial drop, 900 more collectibles will become available on OpenSea — more
Polygon / Flipkart Partnership — Flipkart, one of India's largest e-commerce and payments companies, is launching an ecosystem chain with Polygon CDK (Chain Development Kit) to scale its FireDrops Web3 loyalty program — more
Former Binance CEO / DeSci Exploration — Changpeng Zhao, former Binance CEO, is showing interest in the decentralized science (DeSci) sector. DeSci applies decentralized business models to medical research, with DAOs playing a coordinating role, enabling more people to participate in funding and supporting projects — more
Decrypt x Rug Radio/ Merger Announced — Decrypt Media and Rug Radio are merging to create [REDACTED], a tech-media conglomerate. Rug's community will create written content, while Decrypt's editors gain access to Rug's creator tools and ad-tech network — more
Seam Social / $2.5M Raised — Seam Social, a community-developed social platform giving users creative power to remix their social spaces online, raises seed round led by 1kx, with participation from Seed Club Ventures (🤝), Sfermion, F7 Ventures, and others — more
nftperp / $3M Raised — nftperp, a platform offering perpetual trading for NFTs, raises Series A led by 1kx, with participation from Maven 11 and Mechanism Capital, and angels such as Spencer of Spencer Ventures, Gmoney, David Choi of MetaStreet, Nick Emmons of Upshot, Jonathan Gabler of NFTfi — more
Medallion / $13.7M Raised — Medallion, a direct-to-consumer platform that helps artists build relationships with their fans, raises round co-led by Dragonfly and Lightspeed Faction, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Infinite Capital, J17, Third Prime, Zeal Capital and previous investor The Chernin Group — more
Shadow / $9M Raised — Shadow, a startup aiming to provide “drop in infrastructure for crypto builders to get more data, save users gas, simplify their data stack, and ship products faster”, raises seed round from Paradigm — more
Rhinestone / Pre-Seed Raised — “Rhinestone Raises Pre-Seed Round from 1kx, Lattice, Safe, and Heartcore to unlock modular account abstraction” — more
Andalusia Labs / $48M Raised — Andalusia Labs, a company aiming to provide risk management infrastructure for digital assets, raises Series A led by Lightspeed Ventures, with participation from UAE Mubadala Capital and existing investors Pantera Capital, Framework Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, and Digital Currency Group — more
cyberFund / $100M Raised — The new cyberFund will focus on “advanced cryptography systems (zero-knowledge, fully homomorphic encryption, etc), DeFi, Network States, Cybernetic Orgs (BORGS), alternative reputation systems and data marketplaces, robotics, and artificial intelligence-driven systems, agents, and devices.” — more
Manta Network: New Paradigm / $60M Raised — Manta Network recently unveiled its “New Paradigm” yield-bearing L2 solution. The team raised $60M from Polychain, Binance Labs, Coinfund, and others — more
Wynd Network / $3.5M Raised — Grass, a decentralized web scraping network focused on the creation of decentralized AI models, raises seed round co-led by Polychain Capital and Tribe Capital, with participation from Bitscale, Big Brain, Advisors Anonymous, Typhon V, and Mozaik — more
Claim / $4M Raised — Claim, a social network that lets users earn and trade rewards with friends, raises seed round led by Sequoia Capital. “The startup’s seed round follows its unannounced $2M pre-seed round led by Susa Ventures and Box Group. Claim’s funding rounds included participation from 6th Man Venture, Reflexive Capital, A* Capital, GSW Ventures, The Kraft Group and more.” — more
Crypto Theses for 2024 / Messari — “Key trends, people, companies, and projects to watch across the crypto landscape, with predictions for 2024.” — more
A few of the things we’re excited about in crypto (2024) / a16z crypto — “a list of just some of the things that excite various crypto partners about what’s ahead. “ — more
2024 Consumer Crypto Predictions / Double Down Dispatch — “We asked some of our favorite consumer crypto ecosystem friends for their 2024 predictions — read on for a variety of thoughts from builders and investors working in consumer crypto today.” — more
2024 Crypto Market Outlook / Coinbase Institutional — “We present the key themes expected to prevail in 2024, as well as deep dives into Bitcoin, Ethereum, stablecoins, and more.” — more
What Will Happen In 2024 / Fred Wilson — “… optimistic capital markets are necessary but not sufficient for a healthy innovation economy. We also need innovation. The good news is we have a lot of that and more is coming in 2024. I have never seen an environment with more innovation in the forty years I have been in the tech sector.” — more
The Block Research’s Analysts: 2024 Predictions / The Block — “The Block Pro Research team makes its predictions about what will happen in 2024.” — more
Lessons from 10 Years in Crypto / Andrew Beal — “I read too many “2024 Prediction” posts that overlapped with my own, so I’m instead writing a retrospective. My journey in crypto started in 2013, so I’ve officially been working in this space for ten years.” — more
Make Ethereum Cypherpunk Again / Vitalik — “… we are not here to just create isolated tools and games, but rather build holistically toward a more free and open society and economy, where the different parts - technological, social and economic - fit into each other.” — more
Degens Are Pioneers / Qiao Wang — “A few months ago I came to a hilarious realization: “speculation” is the most contrarian idea among crypto VCs yet the most consensus idea among crypto users.” — more
Explore How Collaborative Storytelling Platform StoryCo (🤝) is Creating Unique Opportunities for Aspiring Screenwriters / Script Magazine — “StoryCo is forging a new pathway for talent recognition and discovery for aspiring screenwriters and artists through global co-creation and profit sharing.” — more
Understanding Axelar (🤝): A Comprehensive Overview / Red Sheehan — “Axelar is more than a bridge: it offers the ability to program cross-chain logic and pass arbitrary data. The upcoming Axelar VM will allow the permissionless connection of new chains.” — more
NFTs Have Evolved, NFTs Endure / Nikhil Raman — “As with many other technologies before it, we are witnessing the continued evolution and improvement of crypto broadly and NFTs specifically. We believe that NFTs are an incredibly simple but also an incredibly powerful primitive that blockchains uniquely enable, and we are deeply excited by the experimentation and new experiences that will emerge.” — more
Institutionalization = Network Success / Mario Laul — “… good technology is only a necessary but not sufficient condition of success as incremental innovation in technology stacks embedded in a highly institutionalized ecosystem with strong network effects can easily win over more radically innovative technology within a lagging ecosystem that fails to sufficiently institutionalize.” — more
COLLECTING THE CULTURE: CRYPTOPUNKS / Andrew Jiang + Todd Goldberg — “In this primer, we’ll cover a brief history of CryptoPunks, deep dive into appreciating them, and share how we’ve crafted our CryptoPunks collection at Curated.” — more
Revisiting borderless payments / Gaby Goldberg & Bridget Harris — “Those who work in crypto know how frustrating it can feel — a concept like borderless payments is about as old as the industry itself, and yet we still have so far to go. But let’s not forget how far we’ve come, too.” — more
Abundance Will Scale NFTs to the Masses / Kinjal Shah + Anay Simunovic — “Scarcity isn’t a requirement for valuing NFTs; instead, we posit that the next generation of NFTs will be valued through their abundance—be it millions of mints, thousands of remixes, or the proliferation of a song.” — more
Tale of two cryptos: speculation vs. decentralization / Jesse Walden — “In late 2023, the speculative side of crypto is once again the game on the field. It has the most activity, users, and attention. In parallel, permissionless rails continue to develop and enable innovation around non-speculative use cases. It’s not a question of if, but when the latter will make a dent that will validate the speculative fervor around the former.” — more
Why Monetize Protocols? / Fred Wilson — “Traditional web protocols like SMTP, HTTP, RSS, etc are not monetized. They are free to use and build on and maintained as open standards that anyone can use for free. That has worked reasonably well in the web era so the question arises why we would want to monetize the new protocols that are emerging in web3.” — more
Solana Thesis – The Fastest Horse Rises From the Ashes / Ryan Watkins, Wilson Withiam, & Daniel Cheung — “Solana is a redesign of blockchains from first principles that has the potential to become foundational alongside Bitcoin and Ethereum. Its technical architecture, inspired by cellular networks, features several new technical components that work together to maximize the potential of hardware and unlock unmatched levels of performance.” — more
SOL Survivor / 0xSmac — “A unique perspective on what makes Solana a compelling asset & network to build on + why low fees can be actually good for value accrual” — more
Crypto AI Agents: The First-Class Citizens of Onchain Economies / Mason Nystrom — “… while AI agents look like toys today, in the future they will augment daily consumer experiences, become key stakeholders in protocols, and create entire economies between themselves.” — more
Wallet Infrastructure: Empowering the Next Generation of Dapps / 1kx x Nich — “Wallet infrastructure is playing a crucial role in unlocking the web3 experience for the next generation of dapps … 2023 has been a pivotal year for the wallet ecosystem, with account abstraction and developments across all layers of the stack shifting market structures and changing how we think about the relationship between users, dapps, and wallets.” — more
Revisiting the Application Layer / Figment Capital — “The end state of the application layer is far less reflexive than it is today, and will generate massive real world value. We’ll get there, slowly.” — more
State of DePIN 2023 / Salvador Gala + Sami Kassab — “This report provides an in-depth analysis of the DePIN space throughout 2023, along with a forward-looking perspective on what's in store for DePIN in 2024.” — more
Rainbow (🤝) / Introducing Rainbow Points — Rainbow introduced Rainbow Points, rewarding Ethereum users for on-chain activities. Every Ethereum user receives an initial drop of points, with opportunities to earn more through regular on-chain actions — more
IYK (🤝) / Collaboration on “Read Write Own” — IYK is powering Chris Dixon’s new book “Read Write Own” with a unique bookmark that acts as a key to unlock dynamic NFTs unique to each holder, exclusive video content from Chris, and other digital experiences. Available only for pre-orders until Jan 16 — more
Dirt (🤝) / 2024 Subscriptions — The 2024 Dirt subscription is now live and offers access to all paywalled content and includes art by David Alderman. The team worked with Privy, Unlock Protocol, and Base to build a strong UX for readers that lives on web3 rails — more
Coinbase / Introducing “Project Diamond” — Coinbase's "Project Diamond" will bring traditional financial assets onto the blockchain, allowing institutional investors to issue and trade digital debt instruments. Approved by Abu Dhabi's FSRA, it combines Coinbase Prime, a web3 wallet, USDC, and Base — more
Frame xyz / $FRAME Airdrop Announced — Frame, a new blockchain network for creators and collectors, announced an airdrop for users with activity in the NFT space. $FRAME will launch on January 31st alongside Frame Mainnet — more
Blast / Deposits Surpass $1.1B — Blast, a new Ethereum L2 with native yield for ETH and stablecoins, has surpassed $1.1B in deposits across > 90,000 users, making it the fastest blockchain to reach this milestone — more + more
Parsec / New Block Explorer — Parsec announced its new high-context block explorer, offering tailored layouts and custom views for tokens, EOAs, NFTs, and more, across 9 chains — more
Golan Levin / Art Blocks (🤝): Cytographia — “Cytographia is an elegy for species we will never know, or will never know again, expressed through generative illustrations from an imaginary book about imaginary organisms.” Dropping January 10th — more
Mathcastles / Angelus — “Priced to sell at less than 0.00001Ξ, yet nearly impossible to buy. Its price is derived from a hidden image, and they can prove it, but we may not live to see the purchase. Angelus is a master stroke in computing arts from a duo that refuses to release anything less than the most deliberate, thoughtful, and prescient work, cementing their role as media-defining pioneers.” 1/1 — more
Stuart Batchelor / Verse: Linea — “Linea is series of generative works by Stuart Batchelor. As an ongoing exploration of the subject the series size and timeline are deliberately undefined.” Dropping Jan. 10th — more
Fountain (🤝) / Newly Assembled Set of Nine Ringers
IYK (🤝) / Spotify x IYK x Shopify
NFTfi (🤝) / On-chain Real Estate Lending
Digitized / Featured #35 x Dirt (🤝)
Ryan Watkins / Metaplex (🤝) x Solana Momentum
Metaplex (🤝) / Metadata Support for Token2022
Nifty Island (🤝) / New Play-to-Airdrop Coming 1/17
Starknet (🤝) Foundation / STRK Distribution Announcement
Mippo / Three New NFT Models
HairDAO / First DeSci DAO to File a Patent
rain&coffee / All About Intents
hitesh.eth / On Parallel EVMs
Tom Dunleavy / 24 Crypto Predictions for 2024
Whales Market / Introducing Points Marketplace
🤝 = Collab+Currency Portfolio Company
Curated by @Collab_Currency x @_cutbank
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