February 28, 2022       /       Unchained Daily       /       Laura Shin

Daily Bits ✍️✍️✍️

• The price of Bitcoin was briefly shown at a deep discount on Robinhood last Friday.

• NFT Worlds, a game built on Polygon, is using open-source software from Minecraft on its platform.

• The US Department of Justice announced the indictment of BitConnect founder Satish Kumbhani on Friday, which alleges that Kumbhani and his associates obtained $2.4 billion from investors in a Ponzi scheme.

• Coinbase Ventures’ Katherine Wu has left the company to join Archetype, a crypto VC firm.

• The EU delayed a vote on crypto regulations about proof-of-work crypto mining.

• Ukraine’s central bank suspended electronic cash transfers.

• The Associated Press canceled a sale of an NFT that showed a video of an overcrowded migrant boat.

Today in Crypto Adoption…

• Zynga sees NFT integrations as a “huge opportunity” for traditional gaming.

• E-commerce giant Rakuten launched its own NFT marketplace.

• Roger Bartlett, a 15-year Goldman Sachs veteran, left the firm to join Coinbase.

The $$$ Corner…

• Aligned, a crypto infrastructure firm, raised $34 million in a recent funding round.

• Ardrive, a blockchain storage app, raised $17.2 million in a seed round.

What Do You Meme?

What’s Poppin’?

Ukraine Solicits Crypto Donations in War Effort

A plea for crypto donations is the pinned tweet of the official Twitter account of Ukraine and has received 181,000+ likes.

As of 5:45 pm ET on Sunday night, the Ukrainian crypto addresses have received roughly $10 million in donations, including 100+ bitcoin, 1,900+ ether, 1.1+ million USDT, and a few hundred thousand dollars in various cryptocurrencies and NFTs. (Polkadot founder Gavin Wood also declared that he would donate $5 million if they would post a DOT address, though Ukraine has yet to take him up on the offer.)

In addition to the donations going directly to the Ukrainian crypto addresses, Pussy Riot, a feminist punk protest group, along with members of Trippy Labs and PleasrDAO, have led the charge in creating a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) to raise money for Ukrainians affected by the Russian invasion.

Dubbed “UkraineDAO,” the collective is raising money via multiple channels. A 1/1 NFT drop of the Ukrainian flag is on auction until Tuesday and has already garnered $3.2 million in ETH (including a 500 ETH contribution from OnlyFans). Users can also send funds directly to ukrainedao.eth if they do not want to participate in the bidding smart contract. UkraineDAO plans to use the money raised from its address (ukrainedao.eth) to support Ukrainian civilians soldiers by donating its funds to the organization “Come Back Alive.”

The donations come as the invasion of Ukraine by Russia continues, which has led to money being used as a weapon.

For example, on Saturday, the US and European Union announced plans to cut off a select group of Russian banks from SWIFT, the international payments system. Explained the group in a statement: “This will ensure that these banks are disconnected from the international financial system and harm their ability to operate globally.”

Politicians in Ukraine are also trying to identify crypto addresses linked to Russian politicians and reporting them to exchanges and government sanctions offices to stop them from cashing out crypto gains.

Recommended Reads

1. CoinDesk’s Michael Casey on privacy (or the lack thereof) in web3::

2. Decrypt’s Jeff Roberts on The Cryptopians:

3. Polynya on historical data storage on Ethereum:

On The Pod…

How Writing ‘The Cryptopians’ Shaped My Views on Ethereum

In a fun change of pace, Steven Ehrlich, editor of Forbes Cryptoasset and Blockchain Advisor, joins Unchained to interview me about my book, The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze, which came out this week. We discuss…

• where the inspiration for “The Cryptopians” title came from

• why I wanted to write a book about Ethereum

• how Vitalik’s role changed over the course of Ethereum’s founding

• who the main characters in The Cryptopians are

• the biggest challenges Ethereum and the Ethereum Foundation faced in its early days

• Ethereum’s “red wedding” day

• what issues with crowdfunding and US securities laws were faced by early Ethereum founders

• how The DAO hack, along with the Shanghai attacks and Parity drama, shaped Ethereum

• what I discovered about Ming Chan’s time as the Ethereum Foundation director

• my biggest takeaways from researching ICOs

• why I think DAOs could be the next big thing

• whether or not I have an idea for a new book…

Book Update

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