October 5, 2021       /       Unchained Daily       /       Laura Shin

Daily Bits ✍️✍️✍️

  • Bank of America’s latest blockchain report indicates enthusiasm regarding the digital asset industry.
  • The Fed is preparing to launch a review of issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
  • The International Monetary Fund (IMF) published a report outlining the “growing systemic implications” for the cryptocurrency industry.
  • Digital asset investment funds saw an inflow of $90 million for the week ending October 1.
  • Dapper Labs acquired Brud, an influencer platform, and is launching a new unit focused on DAOs.
  • Ramp, a crypto on-ramping service, raised $30 million in a Series A valuing the company at $300 million, reports The Block.
  • Hong Kong released a technical whitepaper for a retail CBDC.
  • OpenSea had its best trading day in over a month thanks to a pixel-based toad pfp.
  • Bitcoin miner revenue increased 488% since May 2020.
  • Edward Snowden believes the China crypto ban made BTC stronger.
  • Shaq is launching an NFT collection on October 15th.
  • Citadel Securities CEO says the firm is not trading cryptocurrencies due to regulatory concerns.

What Do You Meme?

What’s Poppin’?

AXS, the native token of the blockchain NFT game Axie Infinity, is poppin’. The token is up over 100% on the week, jumping from $63 to an all-time high of $155 early yesterday morning.

 

The price surge follows a slew of positive announcements regarding the game:

  1. The Information reported that Sky Mavis, the developer behind the blockchain NFT game Axie Infinity, is raising $150 million at a $3 billion valuation. According to the report, the venture firm a16z will be leading the round.

  2. Axie Infinity announced a $60 million retroactive airdrop of AXS to early adopters. Anyone playing the game before October 26th, 2020 were eligible for the drop.

  3. Axie launched staking functionality, allowing users to deposit AXS tokens to the Axie Infinity protocol in return for yield and extra rewards. As of publishing time, over $1.7 billion worth of AXS is locked into Axie Infinity via staking.

The NFT game continues to perform at an impressive clip. Data from Token Terminal shows that over the past 30, 90, and 180 days, Axie Infinity has generated the most revenue of any other blockchain-based protocol outside of Ethereum.

Not to mention, as reported on Unchained, Axie has become a source of revenue for many people living in the Philippines.

Recommended Reads

  1. @DCLBlogger on why NFT prices drop:

  1. a16z’s Chris Dixon on Web 3:

  1. CoinDesk on whether you need to go to college to work in crypto:

On The Pod…

How does the SEC determine if a token is a security? Why is DeFi particularly hard to regulate? What will regulators do about stablecoins? On Unchained, Greg Xethalis, chief compliance officer at Multicoin Capital, and Collins Belton, founding partner at Brookwood P.C., dive into crypto regulation, discussing securities laws, DeFi regulation, and why the US should be promoting stablecoins rather than trying to shut them down. Highlights:

  • why the SEC and CFTC have not announced bigger crypto enforcement news at the end of their fiscal years

  • why the SEC is going after DINO (decentralized in name only) companies

  • what the Howey and Reves tests are and how the SEC uses them to determine whether an asset is a security or not

  • why Collins and Greg think the SEC has recently begun been applying Reves more often

  • why they think centralized crypto lending products should not be considered securities under the Howey test

  • whether new legislation needs to be written for cryptocurrency-based products

  • what makes Collins think the SEC is being “disingenuous” regarding the SEC registration process for crypto companies, like Coinbase

  • how regulators will end up handling DeFi and why both Greg and Collins are long-term optimistic

  • how the US government has a “great history” of respecting privacy and encryption

  • why regulatory pressure is likely to build up around centralized crypto exchanges and what we can learn from the EtherDelta case

  • why Collins thinks most cryptocurrency companies should be regulated

  • why the SEC is the best motivator for forcing protocols to fully decentralize

  • how smart contracts could theoretically be used to standardize SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce’s Safe Harbor proposal

  • how blockchain data makes cryptocurrency companies more transparent and easier to regulate than centralized entities

  • what Collins and Greg think will happen with stablecoin regulation going forward

  • why the US should be pushing to make dollar-pegged stablecoins more prominent

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 Jan. 18. Pre-order it today!

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