July 29, 2021       /       Unchained Daily       /       Laura Shin

Daily Bits ✍️✍️✍️

  • A new infrastructure bill proposes to raise $30B through crypto taxes.

  • Uniswap and Robinhood have held high-level discussions about a partnership — though no deal seems imminent.

  • ProFunds is offering the first-ever Bitcoin mutual fund.

  • OpenSea minted a new record of NFTs last week.

  • Bullish has begun the pilot of its AMM product.

  • Galaxy Digital is launching a $33M fund to fund … other venture funds.

  • Decentraland will soon feature a Coca-Cola NFT box.

  • Binance released a new tax reporting feature for customers.

  • Lolli, a Bitcoin rewards app, has raised $10M in a Series A.

  • “FTX: Blockfolio” is now just “FTX.”


What Do You Meme?


What’s Poppin’?

Wednesday’s Stoner Cats NFT drop resulted in the loss of 344.6 ETH ($750K+), due to a number of failed transactions combined with high gas fees, according to data from Dune Analytics.

Produced by Mila Kunis, Stoner Cats is an adult animated series that can only be accessed via NFTs. The cast is absolutely star-studded, with Kunis, Ashton Kutcher, Chris Rock, Seth MacFarlane, Jane Fonda, and Vitalik Buterin starring as digital collectibles.

The 10,420 Stoner Cats each sold for .35 ETH in just 35 minutes (excuse me, “meow-nutes”) — undoubtedly a success. At publishing time, the project ranks fourth in weekly volume on OpenSea despite only being dropped yesterday.

However, due to an error with the minting contract, many would-be collectors were left with nothing but lighter digital wallets.

Any address that attempted to mint 20 NFTs (the max per address) without manually adjusting the gas limit in Metamask were left with burned ETH and no NFTs, as reported by The Defiant. One user lost 5.8 ETH, worth $13,000+ at the time, due to the error.

As of now, Stoner Cats has not announced any plans to rectify the situation.

For users who did grab an NFT, the first episode, dubbed “Stoned Awakening,” is out today. To check out the episode, you must hold an NFT and connect your Ethereum wallet to the Stoner Cats website.


Recommended Reads

  • Rex Woodbury on how NFTs could transform culture into a liquid asset:

  • Bitcoin mining is complex — and so are the people making the decisions on how to mine:

  • Adam Cochran on the Metaverse:


On The Pod…

Why ShapeShift’s Erik Voorhees Thinks Toxic Bitcoin Maximalism Is Bullshit

ShapeShift recently announced an intent to decentralize — a move that would transition the one-time centralized exchange to a full-on DAO. Erik Voorhees, founder and CEO of ShapeShift, comes onto the show to talk about decentralizing the exchange, along with his thoughts on Bitcoin maximalism and crypto regulation. Show highlights:

  • why ShapeShift is decentralizing the company
  • how ShapeShift used to work
  • what needs to happen for ShapeShift to decentralize
  • why user experience should not change during the transition
  • how the FOX token works
  • what parts of a company cannot be decentralized yet
  • how ShapeShift’s forthcoming foundation will function
  • how ShapeShift decided upon the allocations for the FOX token airdrop
  • why ShapeShift employee and shareholder FOX tokens are locked up for three years
  • what Erik’s role will be going forward
  • how ShapeShift plans to attract devs
  • why Erik believes FOX is not a security
  • how Erik wants the SEC to handle crypto
  • why he believes THORChain is one of the most critical projects in crypto
  • why he is opposed to Bitcoin maximalism
  • Erik’s thoughts on BitMEX’s and Binance’s regulatory issues
  • what he thinks about stablecoin regulation
  • Why Erik believes ShapeShift and Uniswap are not competitors

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