FTX / Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Filing — FTX and roughly 130 of the company’s affiliated entities have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy “to begin an orderly process to review and monetize assets for the benefit of all global stakeholders.” FTX CEO Samuel Bankman-Fried has been replaced by John J. Ray III, the lawyer who was brought in to clean up after the infamous Enron collapse — more
OpenSea / Royalty Enforcement — OpenSea launches new tool that aims to enforce on-chain royalties for NFT creators. The new system took effect on Nov. 8th and creators launching new collections will be able to blacklist certain marketplaces that don’t pay royalties. In a win for creators, OpenSea stated they will continue to enforce creator fees on all existing collections — more
Binance / Increased Transparency — In light of recent events, Binance announces plans to offer its users increased transparency by using a Merkle Tree data structure. In theory, this would provide a system that ensures exchange users’ crypto holdings are safe and secure — more
Circle USDC Reserves / BlackRock — Circle, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, announces a partnership with BlackRock to begin investing in the Circle Reserve Fund to manage a portion of the USDC reserves. The composition of the investments will be approximately 20% cash and 80% short-duration U.S. treasuries — more
Yuga Labs / On Creator Royalties — Wylie Aranow, the co-founder of Yuga Labs and BAYC, publishes a piece outlining a method to preserve creator royalties by using an allowlist (not a blacklist) that enables trading between normal wallets (not smart contracts) and specifically allows marketplaces that respect royalties. If successful, this model would enable free wallet-to-wallet transfers and preserve creator royalties — more
Ethereum / ETH Turns Deflationary — ETH officially turned deflationary 55 days after The Merge. At the time of writing, the post-Merge supply of ETH has declined by over 5,200 ETH, marking an annual deflation rate of ~0.028%. If Ethereum had maintained a PoW consensus, the ETH supply would have increased by more than 660,000 ETH (~$850M) at an annual inflation rate of 3.56% — more
NFT Membership Models / Fitness Industry — Following the adoption from major players like Starbucks, NFTs are increasingly being used to bolster subscription and membership-based businesses. Gym owners are the latest group aiming to bring NFT memberships to wellness clubs and implement web3 components into loyalty programs — more
Solana Labs x Helium / Saga Smartphone — Announced at Solana’s Breakpoint conference in Lisbon, Solana Labs and Helium announce a partnership to bring the upcoming Helium Mobile service (powered in part by T-Mobile) to the Solana Saga Android smartphone in early 2023 — more
Meta / Workforce Cuts — Meta announces job cuts for 13% of its workforce, resulting in the loss of more than 11,000 jobs across various apps and its Reality Labs segment (metaverse, VR, and AR). CEO Mark Zuckerberg says they’re committed to their metaverse plans but have “shifted more of our resources onto a smaller number of high priority growth areas – like our AI, discovery engine, our ads and business platforms, and our long-term vision for the metaverse." — more
NTT Docomo / $4.1B Earmarked for Web3 — During the company’s latest earnings call, Japanese mobile operator NTT Docomo says it will invest up to $4.1B in web3. The company also announced it will partner with Accenture to adopt web3 for social issues — more
Sepana (🤝) / $10M Raised — Sepana, a startup building decentralized search for web3, announces round led by Hack VC and Pitango First, with participation from Collab+Currency, Protocol Labs, Lattice Capital, and Balaji Srinivasan — more
Eterlast / $4.5M Raised — Eterlast, a blockchain gaming company that aims to bring web3 to sports fans (rugby and boxing first), raises round led by Supernode Global, with participation from Immutable X, Founders Factory, and Stake Capital — more
Fordefi / $18M Raised — Fordefi, an institutional MPC wallet + security platform, raises seed round led by Lightspeed Ventures, with participation from Electric Capital, Alameda, Jump, Castle Island, Pantera, and others — more
Notifi / $10M Raised — Hashed, an infrastructure platform that aims to integrate messaging platforms and apps across web3, raises seed round co-led by Hashed and Race Capital, with participation from Struck Capital, HRT Capital, Wintermute, and others — more
Xternity / $4.5M Raised — Xternity, a web3 gaming infrastructure startup that aims to provide a no-code platform for web3 game developers to bridge into web3, raises pre-seed round led by NFX, with participation from Jibe Ventures, Flori Ventures, Secret Chord, and vGames — more
Texture / $5M Raised — Texture, a Solana-based DeFi platform aiming to deliver higher yields to SOL stakers, raises round led by P2P Capital and Sino Global, with participation from Wintermute, Semantic Ventures, and Jane Street Capital — more
Ramp / $70M Raised — Ramp, a crypto payments platform offering on- and off-ramping services, raises Series B co-led by Mubadala Capital and Korelya Capital, with participation from Cogito and Balderton Capital. This round brings Ramp’s valuation to “at least $450M” — more
What to Watch in AI / Mario Gabriele — “To better understand the state of the industry, I’ve asked ten thoughtful AI investors to share the trend they believe is worth watching. My hope is that it helps us (myself included) better identify areas of opportunity and topics worthy of further research.” — more
Creator Royalties / Fred Wilson — “Here’s the bottom line for me. A critical part of the NFT innovation is the ability for creators to specify a royalty rate on their work and have it collected in the secondary marketplaces. This is every bit as important an innovation as on-chain art and everything else that comes from the NFT standard.” — more
The Death of Decentralized Email / Jameson Lopp — “It is said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I believe it is of utmost importance that proponents of decentralized protocols learn from the failures of those that have come before. The following is a review of 40 years of history for the protocol that is the foundation of email.” — more
The Types of Value Graphs / Mason Nystrom — “Every blockchain is inherently a socio-economic graph that maps economic and social connections between digital objects and entities - hence blockchain networks provide a global ownership graph. And similarly to how social networks first competed on types of relationships - social networks for college students (e.g. Facebook) and interest graphs for not safe for work content (e.g. Reddit /nsfw) – early web3 social networks are competing for how to showcase the newest type of value graph - ownership” — more
Gen Z VCs / Terry Nguyen x Dirt (🤝) — “Young investors can advocate for more inclusive, ethical investing, and help crowdfund for projects they believe in. But in the grand scheme of venture capital, they are newcomers with minimal track records and much less capital. Their investing philosophies, too, are not a far departure from those of their elders: Fund companies with long-term growth potential to generate big returns. Venture as a system isn’t so prone to disruption.” — more
Farcaster: Building a Web3 Social Network for Thoughtful Conversations / Peter Yang — “Farcaster is a sufficiently decentralized social network. Compared to other web3 social protocols, Farcaster’s architecture is minimally on-chain. Only a user’s identity is on-chain; everything else—posts, likes, follows, profiles—are stored off-chain in specialized servers called Farcaster Hubs (similar to Ethereum nodes for the Ethereum network). We did this to build the best of web2 and web3.” — more
Floor (🤝) App / Notification Feature — Floor, a mobile app offering users a simple, effective way to track their NFT collections, releases the number one requested feature — price movement alerts for collections in a user’s watchlist — more
Squads Protocol (🤝) / Clockwork Partnership — Squads, the multi-sig standard on Solana, announces a partnership with Clockwork to enable automated operations and workflows for multi-sig users. With Clockwork, developers can schedule and automate smart contracts without relying on centralized infrastructure — more
Cryptoys (🤝) / New Drop — Cryptoys, an NFT native digital platform crafting fully interactive collectibles + games, dropped the “Masters of the Universe” collection on November 9th. Cryptoys partnership with Mattel aims to bring a slate of globally recognized IP on-chain, starting with this drop — more
Neon Labs / Solana EVM — Neon Labs announces it will launch its Ethereum Virtual Machine for Solana on December 12th. The EVM will allow ETH-based projects to deploy on Solana without rewriting their codebases — more
Zerion / In-browser Extension — Zerion, a web3 wallet + portfolio dashboard, launches a beta version of an in-browser extension to compete with MetaMask. Users will be able to view all of their assets across multiple chains in one place — more
Yuga Labs / Yuga Labs News — In an effort to deter scammers and create a single outlet of communications, Yuga Labs launches a new site called Yuga Labs News. This site will be the new home for all official press releases, blogs, events, and drops — more
Ensemble / Bryan Brinkman — “On Ensemble, Artifacts are presented in Stories. Stories include commentary from the artist on the behind-the-scenes process of the work. Artifacts are NFTs on the Ethereum Blockchain, and can be purchased at a fixed price or by 24-hour reserve auction. Our first release is with Bryan Brinkman — including five unseen sketches — dropping Nov. 11th at 10 am PCT.” — more
Refraction DAO / Refract Pass — “Priced at 0.25 ETH, the Refract Pass will act as the main point of access to RefractionDAO. It is an evolving NFT that will offer long-term, expanded utilities for our members. The Pass was created by Refraction using our generative art app, Generate. 1000 editions will be available, each with a unique gradient design. Mint yours on 11/11/22.” — more
Jeff aka ippsketch / Art Blocks (🤝): Imposter Syndrome — “I feel like an imposter. Pseudo-anonymous as ippsketch while maintaining an engineering career and family life. I live on the edge of two worlds, immersed in self-doubt. Leaning into each space, I bring a part of each world with me, but wonder if what I bring is enough. I question my identity while learning to embrace it. Art, after all, is made by ordinary people. And I wonder, does anyone really know what they're doing?” Minting Nov. 28th — more
Anastasia Samoylova / Quantum Art (🤝): Landscape Sublime — “I search online copyright-free image libraries for various kinds of landscape pictures. Deserts. Glaciers. Tropics. Storms. Forests. Waterfalls. Mountains. These are collated, printed out, cut, folded, assembled as three dimensional studio sculptures, and then re-photographed.” 18 pieces, minting Nov. 17th — more
Electralina / Art Blocks(🤝): Ego Death — “Each piece represents not just the aesthetic combination of geometry and faceless human energies, but can be used as a meditation object that will remind the collector of the illusion of self. We have created a new type of pfp project that doesn’t just represent the egoic desire to fulfill ambitions and own scarce luxury goods, but rather is a true expression of one’s soul on the journey to enlightenment.” Minting Dec. 2nd — more
Gallery (🤝) x glitch marfa / Future Frontiers
glitch marfa x Gallery (🤝) / Future Frontiers Lineup
PROOF (🤝) / Collective Perks for Bright Moments (🤝) CDMX
Animoca Brands / Steve McKeon On Web3 + NFT Trends
Gordon Goner / Co-founder Yuga + BAYC On Creator Royalties
OpenSea / On NFT Creator Royalties
FEWOCiOUS / Dear OpenSea
cygaar / OpenSea’s Blacklisting Model
OpenSea / Update on Existing Collections
Greg Valitchka / Creator Royalty Landscape
Chris Cantino / NFTs > Fungibles?
SBF / FTX x Binance
Binance / Backing Out of FTX Deal
FTX / Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
NTmoney / Countersignals
Raoul Pal / Lessons Being Learned
Daniel Keyes / Sepana’s (🤝) Recent Raise
Soho (🤝) / Invites for Admit One
9dcc x Erick Calderon Collab / ITERATION-02 🌈
Patrick Workman / Web2 in Web3 Speak
🤝 = Collab+Currency Portfolio Company
Curated by @Collab_Currency x @_cutbank
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