Web2 Giants Jockey Over Web3

November 11, 2021       /       Unchained Daily       /       Laura Shin

Daily Bits ✍️✍️✍️

• BTC crossed $69,000 for the first time yesterday morning.

• Rolling Stone is auctioning two NFT-themed covers on SuperRare.

• DeFi volume on the largest DEXs has jumped 550% in 2021.

• Electronics retailer MediaMarkt was hit with a ransomware attack on Sunday where attackers asked for millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin in return for releasing the captured data.

• A new bill introduced to Congress would establish rules for financial institutions hit by ransomware attacks.

• Mastercard outlined a three-pronged strategy to support cryptocurrency in a presentation on Wednesday.

• Nexo, a crypto lender, invested in Texture Capital, an SEC-licensed broker-dealer.

• Beeple’s HUMAN ONE, a physical sculpture and NFT, soldfor $29 million at Christie’s.

• The SEC halted the registration of two tokens from the American CryptoFed.

• Dogecoin trading on Robinhood declined drastically in Q3 2021.

• Public.com has expanded its crypto offering from 10 tokens to 21, adding the likes of UNI, SUSH, and SOL.

• LUNA hit an all-time high as the Terra community voted for a burn proposal.

What Do You Meme?

What’s Poppin’?

Twitter. Crypto.

Twitter is making a push into web3, according to a report from the Financial Times. The social media giant, and unofficial home of crypto information, is set to embrace decentralized apps, digital assets, and the growing communities surrounding the industry via a dedicated crypto team.

Tess Rinearson, an Interchain Foundation council member, will be leading the team, dubbed Twitter Crypto. 

On Twitter, Rinearson explained that the dedicated crypto team will be exploring how to best support dapps, communities, and Bluesky, Twitter’s decentralized social network project. “We’ll be working to figure out what crypto can do for Twitter, as well as what Twitter can do for crypto. Twitter truly “gets” crypto (hello bitcoin tipping & NFTs!), but there’s so much more to explore here,” said Rinearson.

Twitter Crypto is the latest in a line of announcements from web2 social media giants dipping toes into web3. For example:

• Facebook rebranded to Meta at the end of October, fully entrenching itself as a metaverse company.

• Discord CEO Jason Citron hinted at an Ethereum wallet integration for the platform.
• Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian announced plans to invest $100 million into Solana.

Recommended Reads

• a16z’s Chris Dixon and Packy McCormick on web3:

• HRF’s Alex Gladstein on Bitcoin versus super imperialism:

• Protos Media on Tether:

On The Pod…

NFCastle 2021: Art Controversy – NFTS: Nothing F**king There?

At Non-Fungible Castle 2021, an NFT exhibition in Prague, four NFT experts debate some of the hottest topics in the metaverse, like how to value NFTs, whether insider trading exists, what makes Ethereum-based NFTS so special, and the environmental impact of NFTs.

Guests include Maria Paula Fernandez, co-founder at JPG, Kavita Gupta, cofounder of FINTECH.TV, Oliver Halsman Rosenberg, artist, and gmoney, an NFT collector. Show highlights:

• what an NFT is
• why NFTs have value
• what the “myth of decentralization” has to do with NFT valuation
• why collectors like gmoney prefer to collect NFTs on Ethereum vs. other chains
• how provenance and IP rights interact with value
• why gmoney thinks Solana Punks are like fake Chanel bags
• what “owning an NFT” actually means
• whether newbies need to be protected from buying scam NFTs
• the “rite of passage” of falling pretty to a rug pull and the concept of “do your own research” (DYOR)
• what can be done about insider-trading-like activities in NFTs
• how to navigate public-facing blockchains when your address is doxed
• different ways to link off-chain assets to NFTs
• what the crypto industry can do to better understand the NFT impact on climate change

Book Update

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