November 1, 2022 / Unchained Daily / Laura Shin
What’s Poppin’?
MakerDAO Co-Founder Nikolai Mushegian Dies in Drowning Accident
Nikolai Mushegian died in a drowning accident in Puerto Rico a day after leaving a cryptic tweet about potentially being tortured to death.
October Is Over: What’s the State of the Market?
The month of October is over. Here’s the state of the market and what might come next.
Tether Says Reports of Bank Fraud Probe Being Revived are ‘Blatant Lies’
by Samyuktha Sriram
Stablecoin issuer Tether refuted claims made in a Bloomberg report that it was being investigated by the U.S. Justice Department.
Bitcoin Miner Argo Blockchain Fears Negative Cash Flow as $27M Raise Fails
by Samyuktha Sriram
Argo Blockchain said it was at risk of becoming cash flow negative in the near term after announcing that a $27 million fundraising effort is no longer in play.
Crypto Staking Nears $100B in Market Cap Globally
by Samyuktha Sriram
The amount of value staked on-chain stands at $95.5 billion, as per data from Staking Rewards.
In Other News… ✍️✍️✍️
- A judicial report revealed that crypto lender Hodlnaut suffered a $189.7 million loss due to its exposure to Terra.
- Aptos DeFi project Arco Protocol faces criticism from the community and risks shutting down.
- Art Gobblers, an NFT project for artists, gathered over $13 million within hours of its launch.
- El Salvador’s Anti-Corruption Legal Advisory Center (ALAC) revealed that the government is refusing to provide information on its Bitcoin purchases.
Today in Crypto Adoption…
- Gamestop announced the launch of its NFT marketplace on Immutable X, an Ethereum scaling solution.
- Apollo Global signed a partnership agreement with Anchorage to offer crypto custody services to its institutional clients.
- The Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong will conduct a public consultation on retail crypto trading and ETFs.
- Fintech unicorn Revolut and decentralized yield aggregator 1inch (disclosure: former sponsor of Unchained) agreed to launch a “Learn&Earn” DeFi course.
The $$$ Corner…
- Lingfeng Innovation Fund (LIF), a new venture capital fund led by former Binance Labs executive Nicole Zhang, gathered $20 million to invest in crypto startups.
- Braavos raised $10 million to launch a self-custodial wallet on Ethereum scaling solution Starknet.
- RakkaR Digital, a Singapore-based crypto custodian, closed a $10 million seed funding round.
- Digital asset bank Custodia, founded by Caitlin Long, raised $7 million.
What Do You Meme?
Recommended Reads
- Justin Bons on the red flags in Solana
- Bruno Mazorra, Victor Adan and Vanesa Daza on rug pulls on Uniswap
- Marc Boiron, chief legal officer at Polygon, on DeFi regulation
On The Pod…
Sterling Crispin, artist and software developer and Holly Herndon, host of the Interdependence podcast, talk about the problems that creators face, some potential solutions, and the debate over creator royalties. Show highlights:
- how Holly and Sterling got into crypto
- how Holly used the Holly Plus Project to pay royalties
- how NFTs change the economic experience of being a creator
- how creators make money and why it is so difficult for most of them
- whether NFT royalties are necessary for artists
- why creators are the ones that should decide to charge royalties or not
- how the enforcement of royalties also occurs in the traditional art world
- whether NFT royalties only benefit big players vs. smaller creators
- what shifts could make paying royalties a norm, the way paying for music streaming became a norm over piracy
- other solutions to helping creators earn from their work besides NFT royalties
- whether NFT creators should use blocklists
- whether people objecting to blocklists can be hypocritical about decentralization
- whether creators can build their own marketplaces
- how a profit-sharing model among creators could work
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: https://amzn.to/3CvfrbE
