April 19, 2022       /       Unchained Daily       /       Laura Shin

Daily Bits ✍️✍️✍️

  • MetaMask is advising users to disable automatic iCloud backups.

  • UST is now the third-largest stablecoin by market capitalization.

  • Gulf Energy Development Public Company Limited, an energy company in Thailand, announced an investment in Binance.US and BNB tokens.

  • A judge denied the SEC’s request to clarify the content of several emails and internal communications about the classification of digital assets for the upcoming Ripple Labs trial.

  • Ethereum Foundation holds roughly .3% of all ETH.

Today in Crypto Adoption…

  • Ukraine has spent $45 million of crypto donations on equipment.

  • Republican lawmakers Patrick McHenry and Bill Huizenga wrote a letter to SEC chair Gary Gensler criticizing the regulator’s recent crypto-centric rules.

  • The Association of Banks in Russia has proposed a law to ban self-custody wallets.

The $$$ Corner…

  • WonderFi, a Canadian crypto platform, plans to acquire the crypto exchange Coinberry for $30.6 million.

What Do You Meme?

What’s Poppin’?

Moonbirds NFTs Are Mooning

Moonbirds, a 10,000-piece NFT collection, has taken OpenSea by storm.

The collection has amassed over 70,000 ETH, or $200 million, in volume since its sold-out mint on Saturday. For context, Bored Ape Yacht Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club barely combined to hit 71,000 ETH in volume for the past 30 days. Moonbirds did so in less than three days and now ranks as the 15th most popular NFT project ever on OpenSea.

The hype surrounding Moonbirds appears to be derived from its team, Proof Collective, an NFT investing and collection groupwith a floor price of 97 ETH to join, founded by Kevin Rose, a partner at True Ventures.

The Moonbirds collection was minted on Saturday, with the majority of the NFTs being sold in a raffle process in which each cost 2.5 ETH, or $7,600. However, 2,000 were minted by the 1,000 Proof Collective NFT holders.

Notably, Moonbirds NFT gives access to the Proof Discord, where exclusive Moonbird-related drops, meetups, IRL events, and, most importantly, access to upcoming Proof projects will be available.

Essentially, the Moonbirds NFTs seem to be gaining steam as a cheaper way to access Proof art than purchasing an 97 ETH Proof Collective NFT pass.

As of writing, the floor price for Moonbirds is holding strong at 19 ETH.

Recommended Reads

  1. Former crypto developer (and inspiration for today’s meme) Andre Cronje on the rise and fall of crypto culture:

  1. Coin Center’s Jerry Brito on crypto and regulation:

  1. MetaMask’s Taylor Monahan on how to prevent yourself from getting rekt:

On The Pod…

Why Crypto Twitter’s Disrespect Toward Regulators Is a ‘Really Bad Business Decision’

Two policy experts, Chris Lehane, chief strategy officer at Haun Ventures, and Niki Christoff, the founder of Christoff and Co., discuss how the crypto industry has performed in Washington and how it can better educate more regulators and politicians about the technology. Show highlights:

  • Niki and Chris’s background

  • how Niki and Chris would grade the performance of crypto companies in Washington

  • what parallels Chris can draw between crypto in the 2020s and FAANG in the mid-90s

  • whether having a plethora of crypto policy groups helps or hurts crypto in Washington

  • whether calling politicians and regulators names and making memes of them helps or hurts the crypto industry

  • an effective way crypto companies can prompt lawmakers and regulators to prioritize crypto policy

  • why it can be strategically smarter to try to convince incumbents to adopt pro-crypto policy over supporting challengers

  • why Chris thinks crypto could be a bipartisan topic

  • what Chris and Niki think about the fact that Democratic candidates received more donations from people working in the crypto industry than Republicans did

  • the three types of crypto users that are valuable to political candidates

  • what Niki and Chris would tell Senator Elizabeth Warren about crypto if they were to meet with her today

  • what effect crypto might have on midterms

  • why the terminology native to crypto may have to change

Book Update

My book, The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze, which is all about Ethereum and the 2017 ICO mania, is now available!

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