Season of Project Updates and Announcements
Sushi DEX aggregator, Polygon zkEVM, Aave V3, Yuga Labs Sewer Pass, Fundraise Flurry
Daily Bullets - Tuesday, January 17th
Today we see an uptick in the amount of fundraising announcements and teases for upcoming events such as Sushi’s 2023 roadmap, Yuga Labs BAYC Sewer Pass mint and teases for Polygon’s zkEVM Mainnet and Aave V3. It’s natural for projects to want to wait for more favorable market conditions to capture as much market mindshare as possible versus launching during bearish conditions. Get ready for the wave if the market can hold.
Daily Bullet Highlights
- Sushi's protocol's 2023 roadmap will focus on user experience, release its DEX aggregator in the first quarter, optimized tokenomics, launch decentralized incubator: Sushi Studios
- BNB Chain completed the 22nd Quarterly BNB Burn via BNB Auto-Burn of over $500M worth of its native tokens
- Polygon successfully completed a hard fork designed to reduce instances of spiking gas fees and disruptive chain reorganizations known as reorgs
- Yuga Labs BAYC Sewer Pass mint
- Polygon zkEVM Mainnet launch soon teased by co-founder
- Aave team member teases Aave V3 could launch this week
- The European Parliament’s final vote on the comprehensive Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation has been postponed to April, stalling the implementation process
- Filecoin Foundation will deploy IPFS aboard a Lockheed Martin spacecraft this year to test use cases for decentralized storage in space
- Digital currencies, such as central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and stablecoins, are the natural evolution of money and payments, Bank of America said in a research report
- Binance Custody will allow institutional investors to keep their collateralized crypto used for leveraged positions, off the platform in cold storage
Analysis
Crypto Narrative: DeFi Prediction Markets:
Crypto Narratives Alpha Series 💎 02
DeFi Prediction Markets are arguably the most underrated crypto theses for 2023.
A thread on positioning for the gold rush on DeFi Prediction Markets + some alpha drips for you.
↓🧵
— Viktor DeFi 🛡🦇🔊 (@ViktorDefi)
Jan 16, 2023
This is an interesting narrative to keep an eye on. Crypto is inherently speculative and these types of speculative marketplaces that allow users to make and trade predictions on real-world future events have potential. Similar to sports betting and gambling which are massive industries. It taps right into human psychology and could be another hot sector during the next cycle. Think how fan tokens did well going into the World Cup.
Crypto News
- Data provider CryptoSlam and crypto news site Forkast.News have combined to become Forkast Labs, a web3-focused media company
- Crypto-focussed bank Silvergate reports Q4 loss of $1B
- Ethereum validators numbers 500,000 ahead of March’s scheduled Shanghai upgrade
- TaxBit, a crypto tax and accounting software provider, acquired rival Tactic to expand its offerings and boost its expansion plans
- The Ethereum Foundation grants to support Ethereum-related academic work. Up to $1M in total available funds. Proposals due February 27th
Crypto Exchanges
- Binance Futures will launch BUSD-margined AGIX perpetual contracts with up to 15x leverage
- Fidelity-backed crypto exchange OSL is cutting staff and reducing overall costs by about a third
DeFi
- Option Liquidity Pools live on Dopex
- Solflare, a wallet on the Solana network, brings 'priority' gas fees to Solana
NFTs/Gaming/Metaverse
- Yuga Labs BAYC Sewer Pass mint
- Nat Geo Genesis NFT Collection - GM: Daybreak Around the World - Primary Sale begins January 17th on Matic Network
- Uniswap airdropped .01E to everyone that purchased an NFT on Uniswap from Nov 30-Dec 14
- Synergy Land, a web3 action role-playing game currently in development, will move from the Solana blockchain to Polygon
- South Korea is bringing Seoul to the metaverse, launching a virtual replica of the city with a goal of improving its public services
- Fashion brand YVES SAINT LAURENT has filed trademark applications for NFTs and virtual goods
Early Stage Projects
- Masa Finance launched the first soulbound identity protocol for the Ethereum mainnet
- Premia’s upcoming V3 launch
- Introducing Hyperlane V2 - The permissionless and modular future of interoperability
- Flux Protocol rebrands to Seda Protocol, a new standard for data transmission across web3
- Timeless Finance - $LIT LBP concluded - Over $2.47M committed by 600 community members
Economic/Government/Regulatory
- The digital yuan (e-CNY), a digital token issued by the Bank of China, has been used to buy securities for the first time
- Crypto lender Nexo sued the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority to reverse its rejection of Nexo's application to register as a virtual asset services provider (VASP)
- Four U.K men sentenced to 15 years in prison for fraudulently obtaining and laundering bitcoin and other crypto worth ~ $26M from an Australian crypto exchange
- Bradesco, Brazil's second-largest private bank, launched its first tokenized bank credit note
Fundraises
- Crypto investment firm HashKey Capital closed its third fund, HashKey Fintech Investment III by raising $500M - @HashKey_Capital
- Web3 infrastructure provider Parfin raised $15M in a bid to dominate the Latin America region. Type: Undisclosed. Sector: Web3 infrastructure. Investors: Framework Ventures, Alexia Ventures, Valor Capital Group, L4 Venture Builder - @parfin_io
- Ethereum startup Obol Labs raised $12.5M to decentralize validators. Type: Series A. Sector: Infrastructure. Investors: Pantera, Archetype - @ObolNetwork
- SYKY, a next generation luxury fashion platform, raised $9.5M. Type: Series A Sector: Digital Fashion. Investors: Seven Seven Six, Brevan Howard Digital, Leadout Capital, First Light Capital Group, and Polygon Ventures - @the_SYKY
- House of Blueberry raised $6M in seed funding for its digital fashion business in the metaverse and interactive entertainment. Type: Seed. Sector: Digital Fashion. Investors: Makers Fund, Everblue Management - @WearBlueberry
- Diva raised a $3.5M seed round to build a decentralized liquid staking protocol and compete with Lido and centralized exchanges. Type: Seed Sector: DeFi Liquid Staking Investors: A&T Capital, Gnosis, Bankless, OKX Ventures, Metaweb, DCV Capital, Alphemy Capital, Very Early Ventures and Stake.vc - @divalabs
- Trusta Labs raised $3+M. Type: Seed. Sector: Web3 security infrastructure. Investors: SevenX Ventures and Vision Plus Capital. HashKey Capital, Redpoint China Ventures, GGV Capital and SNZ Holding - @TrustaLabs
- DeFi protocol Elixir raised $2.1M to allow anyone to participate in crypto market making. Type: Seed. Sector: DeFi Investors: FalconX, Commonwealth, OP Crypto, ChapterOne and Bitmex founder Arthur Hayes - @ElixirProtocol
Research/Reads
- Circle - State of the USDC Economy - source
- CoinGecko - 2022 Annual Crypto Industry Report - source
- Alchemy Q4 2022 report - source
- Modular Design and the Two Blockchains - Replacing a monolithic codebase - source
- How to resurrect the ‘Metaverse dream’ in 2023 - source
- Complete Knowledge - source
- WuBlockchain on TON ecosystem - source
- Immutable’s outlook for blockchain games in 2023 - source
2022 Echo Bubble - Full thesis:
1/ 2022 Echo Bubble - Full thesis
A thread presenting evidence for a mid term bottom and oncoming "echo bubble" with thorough confluence from technical analysis, onchain data, and exchange/derivatives data
— Andrew Kang (@Rewkang)
Jan 16, 2023
Wassie Lawyer analysis on new GTX/3AC exchange:
1/ This hentai penguin has too much on his plate so will procrastinate on real work by being probably the first to actually consider 'GTX' seriously.
Note this is based on the version of the deck I have seen and I am evaluating the concept and how it could work - not the team. twitter.com/TheBlock__/sta…
— wassielawyer (@wassielawyer)
Jan 16, 2023