🗓💊 Rumor Mill: Amazon NFT Marketplace Coming
Daily Bullets - Tuesday, March 7th
Theo Delarosa
March 07, 2023
Today’s newsletter is 1363 words, a cool 5 minute read.
The crypto market continues ranging - Bitcoin is stuck betwixt $22k and ETH $1500. All is quiet whilst we continue seeing more and more regulatory shenanigans and interesting developments from large players.
Which zkEVM competitor are you most bullish on? |
Today we’re looking at:
- 🌳🗣 Rumor Mill: Amazon NFT Marketplace Coming
- ⚔️🤺 zkEVM Battle Royale Race - Combatant “Scroll”
- 🦍🖼 Yuga Ordinals: Successful but Controversial
- ✅ Daily Bullets
- 📊 Market Dashboard
- 📚 Research/Reads
- 📝 Good Tweets
🌳🗣 Rumor Mill: Amazon NFT Marketplace Coming
Quick Take: Disclaimer: this is mostly part of the rumor mill. Amazon is reportedly soon launching its NFT platform - laying the groundwork to give its customers the ability to purchase NFTs tied to real-world assets and deliverable right to your door.
Key Details:
- Significant upgrade from earlier NFT platform development
- Plans to notify US-based Prime customers of the digital collectibles initiative once it goes live
- Customers will be able to purchase NFTs tied to physical goods and pay with a credit card
- Launch date still in flux - potentially April 24 but may come by May at the latest
- Back end blockchain technology uncertain, but has contacted several blockchain projects for integration
- Intends to create some type of private blockchain, and it's unclear whether an Amazon token would be part of the deal
Significance: Adoption. We’re always on the lookout for signs of adoption and traction. So far we’ve seen a lot of duds out there from big brands. Gamestop and Coinbase NFT marketplaces for example.
Reddit has seen early success and so now this potential move by Amazon is worth paying attention to.
Non-crypto people have been historically anti-NFT so introducing this technology to the masses correctly is crucial. Let’s see if they do it right.
⚔️🤺 zkEVM Battle Royale Race - Combatant “Scroll”
Quick Take: Polygon, Starknet, zkSync, Scroll and ConsenSys are in a race to capture the zkEVM market. With zkEVM set to be a continuing trending theme this year and beyond, it’s important to pay attention.
Up and comer Scroll just got a boost of capital influx, announcing a raise of $50M, bringing its valuation to $1.8B.
They’re gonna be using that money to continue building its product, launching mainnet, expanding its ecosystem, and increasing their team size from around 60 to nearly 100.
Key Details:
- Investors: Polychain Capital, Sequoia China, Bain Capital Crypto, Moore Capital Management, Variant Fund, Newman Capital, IOSG Ventures and Qiming Venture Partners
- Total funding: $83M
- Pre-alpha testnet performance: 1M unique addresses and 16M transactions
- Moved out of pre-alpha testnet phase and launched its zkEVM on the Goerli testnet last week
- Mainnet expected to launch in the next three to four months
Significance: When you can smell that a narrative will be hot in the upcoming months, you want to make sure you’re knowledgeable about all the competitors involved and the resources backing them.
Need a fresher on zkEVMs?
Zooming in, the next great frontier for ZK scaling?
zkEVMs.
A zkEVM = a ZK rollup compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine.
zkEVMs can come along a scale from Type 1 to Type 4 depending on how near they are to full EVM equivalence as @VitalikButerin has proposed:
(6/8)
— Bankless (@BanklessHQ)
Mar 6, 2023
🦍🖼 Yuga Ordinals: Successful but Controversial
Quick Take: Yuga Labs concluded its auction of Bitcoin-native NFTs that use the Ordinal Theory protocol to mint the NFTs onto satoshis on the Bitcoin blockchain.
Key Details:
- Successful bids: 288
- Top bid: 7.1159 BTC (~$159,600)
- Lowest bid: 2.2501 (~$50,400)
- Total Spent: $16.49M worth of BTC
- Critics complained Yuga Labs’ auction format took custody of bidders' bitcoin, calling it a dangerous precedent
- Yuga Labs co-founder Greg Solano defended the experiment, saying it was meant to be an experiment and that the company is excited to see new tools for trustless auctions and marketplaces
Ordinals creator, Casey Rodarmor, had some strong words to say:
Dear @yugalabs,
@veryordinally is right. Actions like this prove that for some entities and people: “Once a shitcoiner always a shitcoiner.”
If I, personally, Casey Rodarmor, ever see you, Yuga labs, the entity, fuck around with degenerate bullshit like this again, I will wash… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…twitter.com/veryordinally/…
— Casey Rodarmor (@rodarmor)
Mar 6, 2023
Significance: Yuga Labs is one of the largest players in the NFT space and they’ve got money. Bitcoin Ordinals have been gaining momentum and therefore the intersection between these two is interesting.
Whether a passing fad or the real deal as a potential next innovation/narrative - BTC-Fi is worth keeping an eye on.
✅ Daily Bullets
🔥 Highlights
- Amazon to launch NFT platform on April 24
- FTX sues Grayscale and DCG, citing exorbitant management fees violated its trust agreements
- SEC shuts down investment adviser BKCoin Management in $100M crypto fraud scheme
- SEC accuses Utah-based Green United of running $18M crypto mining scam
- Only nine crypto firms have attained some kind of registration with the SEC
- Coinbase’s Base will likely feature transaction monitoring and AML measures
- Yuga Labs’ TwelveFold Bitcoin NFTs top bid is 2 BTC but draws criticism for auction model
- The Sandbox is releasing 2,333 Gordon Ramsay avatars players can use as their digital identity
- Bybit introduces Mastercard-powered debit card after halting USD transfers
- Circle has made the decision to stop processing ACH payments for all of its partner companies
📰 Crypto News
- Coinbase Went On A Shopping Spree - One River Digital Asset Management
- Vitalik Buterin made over 200 ETH from the sale of airdropped shitcoins
- Voyager Digital judge won’t let SEC fine crypto advisers over bankruptcy
- China to set up new financial regulator in major supervisory overhaul
- Crypto banking firm BCB prepares U.S. dollar payments to plug Silvergate gap
- TeraWulf Nautilus Cryptomine facility - first nuclear-powered bitcoin mining facility in the U.S
- Bank of International Settlements develops cross-border retail CBDC payment system
- Brazil's central bank launches experimental CBDC
- Australian laws to regulate crypto and protect retail customers delayed until mid-2024
- Thailand approved tax waivers for crypto companies that offer investment tokens in the country
- Fourth consecutive week of digital asset investment product outflows
- Luxury fashion brand Hermès asked a federal court to block NFT sales based on its Birkin bag
- Animoca-backed Forkast Labs creates S&P 500 of NFTs index suite
- The State Bank of Pakistan commissioned the development of a blockchain-based national eKYC
- A online crypto scam in Egypt defrauded thousands of investors of around $620,000
💲Coin/Project Updates
- Tender.fi - white hat hacker borrowed $1.59M in assets despite depositing one GMX token
- Coinbase adding support for Liquid Staked ETH (LSETH)
- VeChain whitepaper 3.0 - outlines new sustainable vision
- New release for the Fantom mainnet — go-opera version 1.1.2-rc.5
- Athlete NFT platform Blockasset is leaving Solana for Chiliz Chain 2.0
- Berachain launches Polaris - enables integration of the EVM into any underlying consensus layer
- Guild of Guardians, from Immutable Games Studio, partnership with developer Mineloader
- MINA listed on KuCoin
- Republic will acquire 10M ASTRA tokens from KYC platform Astra Protocol
- Bluesky allows using domain names as handles
- Damus Version 1.2.0 released on the App Store
- Crypto trading aggregator LI.FI launches token bridge and DEX aggregator
- Two new Tarot cores have been deployed on Kava
- Lighter live on Arbitrum
- Introducing Warlord - the first vote incentives index
- The Aleo Faucet is live
📊 Market Dashboard
Chart of the Day - Polymarket Bets on Arbitrum Airdrop Date
Looks like someone knows something about the @arbitrum airdrop...
Odds of $ARBI dropping this month just *tripled* to 50%
See for yourself 👀
polymarket.com/event/arbitrum…— Polymarket (@PolymarketHQ)
Mar 6, 2023
- Speculators are betting that the ARBI token could launch this month! Another highly anticipated and also highly FARMED airdrop.
📚 Research/Reads
- Abundance of dry powder isn’t necessarily a cause for celebration | Crypto startups, beware the 'dry powder fallacy' - source
- Nigerians are protesting CBDC and demanding renewed access to paper money, despite government incentives | Nigerians’ Rejection of Their CBDC Is a Cautionary Tale for Other Countries - source
- Kaiko Data Debrief | The Future of Fiat On-Ramps - source
- What do you as a portfolio manager do when stocks and other risk assets are dead? | The Big Gamble - source
📝 Good Tweets
Drama between Alpha Homora and Iron Bank
Timeline: First shot, chaser, return fire, how it’s going
Third Open Letter to Iron Bank
— Alpha Homora (🪄, 🃏) (@Alpha_HomoraV2)
Mar 5, 2023
Db reveals FTX balance sheet - ~$5.5B 'liquid' assets & ~$11.5B customer liabilities
The FTX balance sheet is really something
$1.6 billion worth of Bitcoin owed to customers, with only $1m there in reality
Rough NFA breakdown of what liquidators have found so far across all silos
-$3.5b in 'liquid' coins
-$1.7b cash
-$800m 'illiquid' restructuring.ra.kroll.com/FTX/Home-Downl…… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…— db (@tier10k)
Mar 7, 2023
Tedtalksmacro explores the upcoming Mt. Gox repayments and the effect on the market
Re: #MtGox fears
Two of the largest creditors (representing ~20% of all claims) have selected to be paid in #Bitcoin - suggesting that they will not sell.
Those assuming this will cause a market crash are assuming that all creditors will opt for early fiat payouts.
— tedtalksmacro (@tedtalksmacro)
Mar 6, 2023
ardizor with some more undervalued projects and potential airdrops to make bank on
#airdrops your way to $1M+? 💸 Absolutely! I know people who have make it.
Don't miss out on my list of undervalued projects - the potential for 6-figures awaits you!
🧵👇— ardizor 🧙♂️ (@ardizor)
Mar 6, 2023
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