February 8, 2022       /       Unchained Daily       /       Laura Shin

Daily Bits ✍️✍️✍️

  • Developers behind Aave announced the launch of Lens Protocol, a web3 social media platform.

  • Japan’s largest bank plans to launch a yen-pegged stablecoin in 2023.

  • Researchers from NY Fed do not foresee stablecoins as the future of payments.

  • North Korea has reportedly financed part of its nuclear and ballistic missile program via revenue from cyberattacks on cryptocurrency exchanges.

  • Valkyrie’s Bitcoin miners ETF was approved for listing on Nasdaq.

  • Crypto asset investment products experienced an $85 million inflow last week – the largest inflow year-to-date.

  • A new proposal on SushiSwap’s governance forum would see the decentralized exchange become a DAO of DAOs.

  • A single crypto project is using the entire space of an Ethereum block to mint NFTs.

  • Kazakhstan is looking into an increase in electricity taxes for bitcoin miners.

  • LooksRare has produced nearly 3x the amount of protocol compared to OpenSea in the past 30 days.

Today in Crypto Adoption…

  • KPMG Canada announced the addition of bitcoin and ether to its corporate balance sheet.

  • Lightning Network is officially integrated on 100% of Cash App accounts.

  • Crypto exchanges Coinbase, Crypto.com, and FTX are looking to run commercials during the Super Bowl.

The $$$ Corner…

  • Ethereum scaling solution Polygon raised $450 million in a token sale that saw participation from SoftBank, Tiger, and other major crypto players.

  • Aleo, a privacy-focused blockchain project, raised $200 million.

What Do You Meme?

What’s Poppin’?

ENS Leader Brantly Millegan Ousted After 2016 Tweets Resurfaced

Yesterday, True Names Limited, the firm behind Ethereum Name Service, decided to terminate the contract of Brantly Millegan, the now-former director of operations of Ethereum Name Service. Ethereum Name Service DAO also voted to indefinitely remove Brantly from his position as a Community Steward for protocol.

“Brantly has been a valued team member of TNL for the past three years. However, as a team we felt that his position with TNL is no longer tenable. Many of you were hurt by Brantly’s comments over the past 24 hours, and we strongly believe that ENS should be an inclusive community,” explained Nick Johnson, lead developer of Ethereum Name Service.

The decision from the ENS community and True Names Limited comes after a 2016 tweet of Brantly’s expressing homophobic and transphobic opinions resurfaced. The original tweet has since been deleted but was shared heavily across Twitter over the past few days.

 

 

The backlash was quick and vociferous, with many prominent leaders in the crypto community expressing their distaste for Brantly’s words. For example, Uniswap CEO Hayden Adams called on Brantly to apologize for his remarks, claiming that “Web3 should be inclusive and welcoming.”

In response, Brantly has seemingly doubled down on his position, citing his religious beliefs. I’m “not really interested in debating the theology right now, but what i believe is the mainstream traditional Christian positions held by the world’s largest religion. it’s not exactly fringe,” noted Brantly on Twitter. He published a similar statement on Discord:

 

 

Yaniv Tal, the co-founder of The Graph, also weighed in. “I condemn his [Brantly’s] views. I think they’re bigoted, and we should aim for a world where no one shares those views. I feel deeply for LGBTQ+ people who have suffered at the hands of hate. That is not right,” Yaniv wrote on Twitter.

However, Yaniv then went on to say that Brantly being fired is possibly a “non proportionate response.” Wrote Yaniv, “In my opinion, non proportionate responses include running somebody out of the space, pressuring to have someone’s content removed, or trying to get them fired from their job…I can’t help but feel like I’m watching a public execution.”

As of press time, Brantly is the top ENS delegator and holds a total of 355.77K votes within the DAO – meaning he controls the voting power within the ENS DAO. Coinbase comes in at number two with roughly 333K votes. Ethereum Name Service is a DAO governing a protocol that allows users to purchase Ethereum domain names. Ethereum domain names (.eth) essentially let users name a wallet address something simple, like wallet.eth, instead of a complex wallet address.

Recommended Reads

  1. @cobie on VCs in crypto:

  1. Spartan Group’s Jason Choi on avoiding web3 bullshit:

  1. Forbes on how a hacker unlocked a $2 million crypto wallet:

On The Pod…

Will Every Piece of Media Enter the Internet as an NFT? Variant Fund Says Yes

Variant Fund is a venture capital firm that describes itself as “a first-check crypto fund investing in the ownership economy.” Jesse Walden and Li Jin, co-founders and general partners at Variant, join Unchained to discuss the ownership economy, issues with web2 and web3, NFTs, the future of work, and more. Highlights:

  • where Li and Jesse met and how their backgrounds as investors + founders led them to the crypto space

  • how Li’s investing niche, which she describes as the passion economy, ended up intersecting with crypto

  • why Li believes that web3 platforms will be better for creators than the current web2 ecosystem

  • why Jesse was so inspired by Bitcoin after working in the music industry for so many years

  • why Jesse believes that NFTs are the “port of entry” for the mainstream adoption of crypto

  • what other use-cases exist for NFTs outside of the JPEG or PNG meme (and why Jesse is so excited about music NFTs)

  • why Li believes that web3 tools can help fix the issues inherent to the “gig economy”

  • Li and Jesse respond to criticisms of web3 coming from Jack Dorsey and Moxie Marlinspike

  • how Variant Fund thinks about investing in crypto projects

  • what token allocation Variant Fund targets when investing in crypto projects

  • why mainstream platforms are experiencing backlash for integrating with NFTs and crypto

  • what trends in NFTs, DAOs, and the ownership economy Jesse and Li think will pop in 2022

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 Feb. 22. Pre-order it today!

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