CZ stops crypto market meltdown by buying FTX
Hi Fellaz,
What a week it has been!
The space has been overwhelmed with news, and today was crazy as well: Crypto Twitter went crazy about the news that Binance bought FTX, while the NFT space went wild on the royalties discussion.
Plenty has happened in the past week, so feel free to scroll through our newsletter, and as a bonus: some of my favorite saved tweets of the past week:
A list of upcoming web3 events
A16Z is bringing back Crypto Startup School
Adidas Into The Metaverse - How it all began
PS - for the new subscribers: I’ve started an event and party schedule for Art Basel Miami, taking place December 1 to 3 in Miami: alphaschedule.io. The schedule is accompanied by a dedicated Telegram channel and will be kept up-to-date by yours truly! Feel free to share it with your fellow degen friends, and reply to this email if you see missing parties.
— 🩸💀 AMERICAN RADASS
CZ stops crypto market meltdown by buying FTX
The crypto world turned upside as the CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), announced his company has signed a letter of intent to buy rival FTX. The deal, which comes after CZ feuded openly with FTX’s CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) over the weekend, marks a shock collapse of a company that many viewed as the future of crypto, and leaves Binance as the undisputed king of the industry.
Rumors of FTX’s potential implosion had been circulating for 48 hours, with some fretting that the company would share the infamous fate of Celsius and Voyager—large crypto firms that blew up unexpectedly in the spring and appeared to raid customer funds in a desperate bid to stay solvent.
Yuga Labs founders suggest allowlist that enforces royalties
Wylie Aronow and the other co-founders of Yuga Labs have suggested a method to allow NFT sales only to royalty-enforcing marketplaces.
They suggest doing this through an allowlist which would check the wallet address for a Bored Ape Yacht Club transaction, as detailed in a Substack post. If it’s a normal wallet or externally owned account, the transaction would automatically go through since it’s impossible to tell whether someone’s harmlessly swapping an NFT between their wallets or attempting a trade that bypasses royalties, such as through wrapping.
The transaction would be denied if the allowlist detects a transaction request from the smart contract of an NFT marketplace that bypasses royalties.
OpenSea shared its plans regarding NFT royalties
As many NFT platforms shifted away from honoring creator-set royalties in recent weeks, top marketplace OpenSea had remained silent on the subject, apparently weighing its options. The company finally showed its hand—but OpenSea’s newly expressed strategy isn’t sitting well with many prominent Web3 creators.
In a Twitter thread, OpenSea shared what it called a “thoughtful, principled approach” to NFT royalties, including the rollout of a system that would let creators of new projects blacklist certain marketplaces that do not require traders to pay royalties.
However, OpenSea’s overall message isn’t resonating as clearly as that single comment, with many NFT creators sounding the alarm on social media over what they believe are misleading comments or unclear intentions over the marketplace’s true path forward.
📰 OTHER NEWS FROM THE PAST WEEK
It looks like Lucy Kirkness and Olivia Taylor-Weale have rugged the Chum Chums NFT project after they paid themselves 300 ETH and went MIA.
VeeCon 2023 will be organized in Indianapolis from May 18th through May 20th.
Instagram announced that users would soon be able to mint digital tokens on the polygon network, as it developed its own marketplace.
Solana has unveiled a new partnership with Google that involves multiple integrations between the crypto project and the tech giant, such as Google Cloud becoming a Solana node validator.
NFT.London’s two-day inaugural stint saw over 2,500 registered attendees and 800 speakers
Opensea has introduced Malicious URL Detection and Removal to its platform
Having operated in stealth for quite some time, Larva Labs' Meetbits are finally being brought to life.
The Japanese sportswear company Asics unveils the ‘UI Collection,’ created in partnership with blockchain brand Solana.
The SEC has won a court case against the blockchain-based publishing platform LBRY. According to LBRY, the SEC’s victory sets “a dangerous precedent” for crypto regulation in the US.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the FTX CEO, is one of the biggest contributors to the 2022 U.S. midterm elections.
Terra Luna founder Do Kwon has joined a Twitch show amid carnage in the crypto markets as FTT tanks to $9, and was told by Martin Shkreli that "jail isn't that bad".
Web3 Foundation’s chief legal officer Daniel Schoenberger argued that Polkadot’s native token DOT has “morphed” and is software, not a security.
✨ NEW IN THE SPACE
Formula One constructor Haas has announced a collaboration with Opensea. As part of the agreement, a collection of NFTs will be produced for Haas, while Opensea’s logo will appear on its cars.
Luxury watchmaker Rolex enters the metaverse by filling crypto and NFT trademark applications
Hollywood juggernaut Warner Bros. Discovery is diving even deeper into the world of crypto behind another iconic brand: Game of Thrones.
MetaMask has partnered with the Game7 DAO to create HyperPlay, a Web3 game launcher from the future.
Flowcarbon, a blockchain startup co-created by WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann, will launch an NFT project that uses most of its proceeds to buy carbon offsets.
Texture, a DeFi yield platform, is now live in private beta testing after raising $5 million in a round headed by P2P Capital and Sino Global.
💀 HOW TO RECOGNIZE A RUG PULL
After being charged with money laundering, wire fraud, and wire fraud conspiracy, Instagram star Jebara Igbara, aka “Jay Manzini,” entered a guilty plea. He conned investors out of $8 million using social media to spread false information about investment programs.
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🤓 DISCLAIMER: NFA & DYOR
This newsletter is a curated overview of the most exciting things I’ve read the past week, the projects I’ve researched, and the NFTs I’ll be trying to buy.
This means I’m - per definition - biased, so don’t consider this as financial advice, and keep doing your own research if you see something you like.