November 18, 2021       /       Unchained Daily       /       Laura Shin

Daily Bits ✍️✍️✍️

  • MetaMask reported that 21 million users actively use its platform each month (it is unclear how the company is measuring users rather than addresses or wallets).

  • ConsenSys closed a $200 million raise at a valuation of $3.2 billion.

  • ConstitutionDAO has raised $30+ million in ETH to bid on a copy of the US Constitution.

  • India is set to ban crypto for making payments but will regulate the trading of crypto as assets.

  • Christopher Waller, a governor of the Fed, pushed backagainst the notion that stablecoins should be issued by banks.

  • Sablier, a protocol that streams money by the second, is deploying on Polygon and Binance Smart Chain.

  • Michael Hsu, acting head of the OCC, advocated for consolidated regulatory supervision of the crypto industry.

  • Fidelity started Canada’s first institutional BTC custody service.

  • AVAX topped $100, reaching a new ATH and breaking into the top 15 tokens by market cap.

  • Epic CEO Tim Sweeney views the metaverse as a multi-trillion-dollar opportunity.

  • A blueprint of the CFTC to set up a crypto-exchange regulatory body was opened to public comment.

  • Oasis Foundation announced a $160 million fund to kickstart development on Oasis, a layer 1 privacy network. (And disclosure: a former sponsor of the show.)

What Do You Meme?

What’s Poppin’?

Naming Rights Make CRO Soar

The Staples Center in Los Angeles, the famous home of the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers, will be renamed Crypto.com Arena next month. (Disclosure: Crypto.com is a sponsor of my shows.)

Crypto.com, a Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange, purchased the naming rights to the stadium from AEG, the owner and operator of the arena, for the next 20 years at a reported price of $700 million. Crypto.com will also become official partners for the Los Angeles Lakers and LA Kings under the agreement.

The exchange had previously inked a similar deal with the Philadelphia 76ers. In addition, Crypto.com is a sponsor of Formula 1 and UFC.

According to data from Coin Gecko, Crypto.com’s native token, CRO, was up ~25% over the last 24 hours — a period when the entire crypto market cap was down 1.2%.

Recommended Reads

  • Bankless on zkRollups:

  • Bitwise on DeFi for professional investors, with help from Token Terminal:

  • Messari’s Mason Nystrom on ENS:

On The Pod…

PayPal Would Need These Two Things In Order to Issue a Stablecoin

Jose Fernandez da Ponte, PayPal’s senior vice president and general manager of blockchain, crypto, and digital currencies, discusses PayPal’s crypto game plan, how CBDCs might be implemented, crypto regulations, and more. Show highlights:

  • Jose’s path to becoming the GM of blockchain, crypto, and digital currencies at PayPal
  • what factors led to PayPal’s decision to launch its crypto offering
  • what sort of customer makes up PayPal’s crypto demographic
  • how users are engaging with the various PayPal crypto services, like crypto-rewards cards
  • whether the introduction of crypto had anything to do with Venmo’s 36% jump in volume during Q3 2021
  • how PayPal interacts with Paxos on the backend to settle crypto transactions
  • why Jose thinks PayPal has decided to not add cryptocurrency to its balance sheet
  • how crypto transactions work within PayPal’s internal ledger and how that might change once PayPal launches support for withdrawals off-platform
  • the three types of directions that Jose believes stablecoins and CBDCs could be built
  • what solutions would need to be built before PayPal would consider issuing its own stablecoin
  • what scaling technologies, be it L1 or L2, PayPal is interested in
  • whether stablecoins and CBDCs can/will co-exist
  • Jose’s thoughts on how long it will be before CBDCs are being issued
  • why Jose thinks that new regulation might be necessary for cryptocurrencies
  • whether PayPal will be participating in decentralized activities, such as on-chain governance
  • why Jose thinks that PayPal’s crypto offering could help improve financial inclusion — especially for smaller companies
  • why Jose and PayPal are excited about NFTs
  • how PayPal will decide to support new cryptocurrencies on its platform
  • what Jose thinks PayPal’s crypto offering could look like in the future

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