July 11, 2021       /       Unchained Daily       /       Laura Shin

Daily Bits ✍️✍️✍️

  • Jack Dorsey confirmed that Square is building a hardware wallet.

  • President Biden commented on the recent string of ransomware attacks in the US, some of which asked for BTC as payment.

  • A lawmaker in Paraguay plans to introduce a bitcoin-focused regulation law this week.

  • Crypto venture funding grew by roughly 90% during the second quarter of 2021.

  • NFTs are popping up everywhere in the world of sports: Dodgers, Home Run Derby, college athletes.

  • ChainSwap, a DeFi bridge, experienced an exploit on Saturday.

What Do You Meme?

What’s Poppin’?

The cryptocurrency exchange Bullish is set to go public through a merger with the special purpose acquisition company Fark Peak Acquisition, headed by former NYSE President Tom Farley.

Farley will take over as chief executive officer, leading a company that includes a handful of big-name backers, including Peter Thiel, Alan Howard, Richard Li, Galaxy Digital, and Nomura.

The deal values the crypto exchange at $9B — roughly one-fifth of Coinbase’s market cap of $52B.  According to the press release, Bullish expects the transaction to close by the end of 2021. The exchange has yet to release an actual product, though it plans to release a pilot in the coming weeks where participants will be able to test the platform before Bullish’s public launch.

Bullish was initially unveiled in May, with a $10B investment from Block.one.

Bonus Recommended Read:

FTX CEO Sam Bankman Fried on how to value Bullish (he may know a thing or two about valuing an exchange):

Recommended Reads

  • Haseeb Qureshi, partner at Dragonfly, on why roll-ups are crucial to Ethereum’s scaling quest: 

  • Joshua Durham (my former editorial assistant) on Wyoming’s DAO law:

  • Genevieve Roch-Decter on why it is still too early for Bitcoin:

On The Pod…

How Axie Infinity Boosted Revenue 400%+ in 30 Days

Aleksander Larsen, co-founder and CEO of Axie Infinity, discusses Axie Infinity’s recent growth, which has seen the platform do 20X the volume of NBA Top Shot in recent days. Show highlights:

  • what is Axie Infinity?

  • why there has been such an uptick in network activity and profitability

  • how the Axie Infinity team came together

  • how Axie Infinity uses blockchain technology within its game

  • how Axie Infinity leverages the ‘play to earn’ mania sweeping across Web3 applications

  • what problems may arise as Axie Infinity starts to decentralize

  • how Axie Infinity is attempting to lower the expensive barrier to entry that comes with blockchain-based games

  • why the Philippines is going crazy for Axie Infinity

  • why building out a sidechain has been such a positive development for the company

  • the two ways Axie Infinity makes money

  • what’s next for Axie Infinity

Book Update

My book, The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze, is now available for pre-order now.

The book, which is all about Ethereum and the 2017 ICO mania, comes out Nov. 2nd. Pre-order it today!

You can purchase it here: http://bit.ly/cryptopians