February 2, 2022       /       Unchained Daily       /       Laura Shin

Daily Bits ✍️✍️✍️

• It appears that Daniele Sesta is wresting control of the DeFi protocol Wonderland after a tumultuous week of management drama; Speaking of drama, an address linked to Wonderland co-founder 0xSifu/Michael Patryn cashed out $5.5 million worth of ether.

• El Salvador is using AlphaPoint, a crypto software firm, to help fix a series of issues with its Chivo wallet.

• $2.5 billion in BTC was moved by 2016 Bitfinex hackers yesterday.

• ConsenSys acquired crypto wallet MyCrypto.

• The Fed released a new research report on stablecoins on Monday.

• Aave successfully facilitated a cross-chain governance proposal.

• Arcade, a lending protocol, launched an NFT lending platform on Monday.

• Bitcoin’s market cap dominance surged to a two-month high yesterday.

• Kuiper, a DeFi index protocol, was released yesterday in a soft launch.

Today in Crypto Adoption…

• India acknowledged the crypto industry and will tax crypto income at 30% starting this year.

• Coachella is set to drop a collection of Solana NFTs in a deal with FTX.

• NFTL legend Tom Brady is retiring… to focus on his NFT startup.

• Sports Illustrated is set to launch an NFT marketplace on Polygon.

• “No international organization is going to make us do anything, anything at all,” said El Salvador’s Treasury Minister Alejandro Zelaya in reference to the IMF’s recommendation to cease accepting Bitcoin as legal tender.

• NFT backlash stopped Worms from launching an NFT collection.

The $$$ Corner…

• DeFi project JonesDAO recently raised $52 million in 24 hours.

• 776, a VC firm headed by Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, has raised $500 million across two funds to invest in crypto.

What Do You Meme?

What’s Poppin’?

.59% of All BTC Is Now Held By MicroStrategy

MicroStrategy, the software firm turned diamond-handed Bitcoin HODLer, hosted its second annual Bitcoin for Corporations conference yesterday.  According to MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, the two-day event ending today focuses on giving advice for corporations “interested in integrating bitcoin” into products or balance sheets.

The conference began with Block CEO Jack Dorsey making his first public appearance since stepping down from Twitter to take over the payments firm full-time. In a conversation with Saylor, CoinDesk reports that Dorsey expressed optimism for Bitcoin’s future use-case: “We’re the closest we’ve ever been to having a native currency for the internet with bitcoin,” said Dorsey on stage. He went on to add that “slow things tend to last and be more predictable and secure” in response to criticisms of Bitcoin compared to Ethereum or other crypto networks.

The software firm also announced that it had stacked another 660 bitcoin for $25 million (at an average price of approximately $37,865) yesterday in an 8-K filing. The latest purchase pushes the firm’s Bitcoin holdings to over 125,000 – meaning that 0.59% of bitcoins 21 million supply is held by one entity.

Interestingly, despite reporting that its bitcoins were purchased at an average price of $30,200 in yesterday’s filing, MicroStrategy took a $146.6 million impairment charge on its BTC holdings in Q4 of 2021 – a number that reflects the decline in the price of bitcoin versus what MicroStrategy bought it for. According to CoinDesk, CFO Phong Le expects a similarly tough impairment charge for Q1 2022 due to Bitcoin’s poor performance to start the year.

Despite the impairment information, MicroStrategy stock ended the day up 1.36%.

Recommended Reads

1. Fidelity on why Bitcoin is a “superior form of money”:

2. @croissanteth on Ethereum L2s:

3. The Block’s Lars Hoffman dropped 14 on-chain stats for January 2022:

On The Pod…

How NFT DAOs Could Shape the Next Blockbuster, Fund Poetry and Change VC

Dapper Collectives CEO and Friends With Benefits founder Trevor McFedries joins Unchained to discuss social tokens, NFTs, the creator economy, $FWB, VC snacks, DAOs, Cooper Turley, and more. Show highlights:

• Trevor’s past, which includes a top 10 album, working at Spotify, founding Brud, creating Lil Miquela, and, of course, falling down the crypto rabbit hole

• what Trevor’s vision for Dapper Collectives is

• what type of activities DAOs will facilitate in the future

• why Trevor is so excited to be working with Dapper Labs and Flow

• what Friends With Benefits is and how the $FWB token works

• what sort of tokens make up the Friends With Benefits treasury

• why venture capitalists who want to be involved with Friends With Benefits need to have a good snack game

• why Trevor is not worried about $FWB becoming a security

• what plans Friends With Benefits has in store for 2022

• Trevor’s response to Friends With Benefits suspending co-founder Cooper Turley regarding 10-year old racist and homophobic tweets

• what can be done to onboard a more diverse demographic to crypto

• how Trevor defines the passion/creator economy

• what Trevor is looking forward to in 2022 regarding NFTs, DAOs, and social tokens

Book Update

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