March 18, 2022       /       Unchained Daily       /       Laura Shin

Daily Bits ✍️✍️✍️

  • Volume for Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs ballooned following the launch of ApeCoin; ApeCoin had a volatile trading start.

  • CAKE spiked after Binance announced a DeFi program highlighting PancakeSwap.

  • Coinbase Wallet added support for Solana.

  • Russia’s Sberbank now has permission from Russia’s central bank to issue and exchange digital assets.

Today in Crypto Adoption…

  • New job openings at Spotify hint at web3 plans.

  • GameStop’s NFT marketplace should go live by the end of July.

  • Bessemer Venture Partners, which is spun out of the 111-year-old firm Bessemer, is launching a DAO.

The $$$ Corner…

  • Optimism, an Ethereum scaling solution, raised $150 million at a $1.65 billion valuation.

  • Lava Labs, a gaming startup, raised $10 million pushing its valuation over $100 million.
  • Mina Protocol completed a $92 million token sale led by Three Arrows Capital and FTX Ventures.

What Do You Meme?

What’s Poppin’?

Warren and Sherman Cement Themselves as Anti-Crypto

Yesterday the Senate Banking Committee hosted a hearing on crypto’s role in illicit finance, specifically in the context of Russians attempting to evade sanctions.

The committee welcomed Chainalysis founder and CSO Jonathan Levin, along with former Chainalysis employee Michael Mosier and Michael Chobanian, founder of KUNA Exchange and the President of the Blockchain Association of Ukraine.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, who sits on the Senate Banking Committee, was heavily featured in the proceedings. As evidenced in the video below, Senator Warren seemed quite intent on proving that cryptocurrency technology like cross-chain transfers and coin-mixers could help Russian Oligarchs evade sanctions – despite Mr. Levin’s attempts to explain that any transaction of crypto on an Oligarch-level could be traced.

 

 

In addition to Warren’s remarks above, she, along with ten Democratic co-sponsors, introduced a piece of legislation dubbed the “Digital Asset Sanctions4Compliance Enhancement Act,” which would grant Treasury the right to bar crypto service providers from doing business with any crypto address associated with Russia. The definition of a “digital asset transaction facilitator” is rather vague and has sparked protest from lobbying institutions like Coin Center.

“The bill would place sweeping restrictions on persons who build, operate, and use cryptocurrency networks even if they have no knowledge or intent to help anyone evade sanctions. It calls for sanctioning technologists and users merely for the act of publishing open-source software or facilitating communication among network participants,” wrote Coin Center in a blog. The crypto research and advocacy group went on to claim that the bill’s language is “unnecessary, overbroad, and unconstitutional.”

That being said, Coin Center’s Jerry Brito does not think it is time to panic yet. The bill “does not have bipartisan support, doesn’t seem like it will be attached to anything ‘must-pass’, and flies in the face of what experts and the Administration recommend. I don’t see it moving for now. Will let you know if anything changes,” Brito tweeted.

While Brito says the bill will not have bipartisan support, The Block reports that Representative Brad Sherman, a Democrat with a history of being anti-crypto, may introduce a companion bill to the House that would allow the Treasury to compel crypto exchanges to block all transactions with Russia-associate wallets. “I will be introducing a companion bill in the house and look forward to joining with my colleagues to make sure that one of the tools available to the administration is the ability to tell crypto exchanges, if they’re doing business in the United States, they can’t do business with Russia based crypto wallets until this crisis is over,” The Block reports him saying.

Recommended Reads

  1. Arthur Hayes on the case for $1,000,000 BTC:

  1. RainandCoffee and mikey on a new protocol that could change the multi-chain user experience forever:

  1. Forbes on Razzlekhan:

On The Pod…

Punk6529 on the Significance of Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks

In his first podcast appearance ever, Punk6529, known for writing massive threads on Crypto Twitter, discusses the cultural and historical significance of Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs purchasing the intellectual property rights to CryptoPunks and Meebits from Larva Labs. Topics:

  • how CryptoPunks set the industry standard for PFP projects

  • how Bored Ape Yacht Club distinguished itself from CryptoPunks – and other NFT projects

  • why 6529 is bullish on the utility of intellectual property rights and commercial use being granted to NFT holders by Yuga Labs

  • why 6529 believes Yuga Labs will be good stewards of CryptoPunks

  • how NFTs (and Bitcoin) are leveraging memes and social construction to go mainstream

  • what 6529 thinks Larva Labs’ legacy will be in the NFT space

  • how royalty revenue streams led to the Yuga Labs purchase of Meebits and CryptoPunk IP

  • why 6529 is unsure about the significance of metaverse real estate

  • what 6529 thinks about ApeCoin

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: http://bit.ly/cryptopians