Welcome to this 14th issue of the Chain Reaction newsletter for the week commencing 21st February 2022.
In the news last week we saw a busy week for the Aus DeFi crew with our the announcement of a podcast we'll be doing and our monthly meetup at the venue where we'll be doing this event from (affectionately called the Crypto Hub). It was an amazing turnout and just goes to show how passionate people are to connect and collaborate and share stories of what they're doing in this space. Here's to more of that.
Elsewhere there was the announcement of Selfwealth getting into crypto with BTC Markets, a review of the NFL Super Bowl crypto ads and some great videos on news of the week, on-chain metrics and more from ausbiz Cracking Crypto series.
If you like what you see and you're interested in continuing these awesome DeFi conversations, join us on our Discord: https://discord.com/invite/ZRCTDdsVEF
What you can expect in this newsletter
In the News
Videos of the week
Charts and Data
Around the world of social media
Education
In the news
Aus DeFi Meetup - putting this in the learning bucket as it was all about learning as we had our monthly meetup with a hybrid in person and online event. There was some amazing connections with our members sharing projects they're working on, their backgrounds and more. Thanks to the brave souls who came up and spoke including Kat Dunn, Mike Kelly, Ben Reid, Jason Hardie, Harrison Dell, Karin van Eeden and Simo from NFT Sydney. We'll be sharing videos from the event on our socials and via the YouTube channel which is set to launch soon. Also thanks to Chris Sinclair for helping us put on an amazing event!
It's going to be very interesting to see how we all progress but we will be doing it together! Here's a few images and Tweets about the night
Check out some of our Tweets from the event from our official Aus DeFi twitter account (and give us a follow if you have not done already):
LinkedIn - Clanz announces new Global CEO Michael Kollo - Clanz, a new crypto trading app, has announced the appointment of a new CEO, Dr. Michael Kollo who is former GM of Quantitative Solutions and Risk at superannuation fund HESTA and was Chief Economist at Faethm AI. He comes with a wealth of investment experience so it will be interesting to see how he shapes the future for this exciting new trading venture.
Using Signatures (ECDSA) for NFT Whitelists - an article from on of our members (ItsCuzzo in the Discord) where he breaks down Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) for NFT whitelists including the script, technical insights, website implementation and more. Well worth a look.
BusinessInsider - Top NFT exchange OpenSea launches venture capital arm, following in footsteps of crypto firms FTX and Alchemy - OpenSea announces launch of OpenSea Ventures to support web3 and NFT projects. This means companies that come into this will have access to strategic partners Andreessen Horowitz and Standard Crypto.
NYSE Trademark for NFTs - This link shows NYSE's trademark application for the "Provision of an online marketplace for buyers, sellers, and traders of downloadable digital goods authenticated by non-fungible tokens (NFTs)". Interesting!
EDGE OF CHAOS - BY E.L.K. - Details about Australia's first hybrid NFT art exhibition Edge of Chaos which features stencil art by E.L.K and will be in one of the Towers at Barangaroo in Sydney. It runs from 11th March to 1st April so get your tickets and for those of us attending we'll share some photos.
AFR - Not ‘just a Millennial holding’: Broker SelfWealth offers crypto - Selfwealth inks a deal with BTC Markets in order to offer crypto to its customers. This comes as CommBank said it would offer crypto but via a testing phase rather than immediately to its consumers. They have 120k customers with support across the board for this type of investment.
Blockworks - JPMorgan Enters the Metaverse With Virtual Decentraland Lounge - JP Morgan has become the first major bank in the Metaverse with the opening of the Onyx Lounge in the blockchain-based world Decentraland, a move motivated by a fear of “being left behind”. Also unveiled was a report forecasting a $1 trillion yearly revenue market opportunity in the Metaverse and a $4 trillion addressable market in China.
Sports Pro Media - McLaren F1 create Roblox fan experience to celebrate car launch - McLaren becomes first F1 team to get into the metaverse with this Roblox partnership. Fans can access a virtual version of the MCL36 vehicle via in game experiences and was part of a broader fan experience roll out with Roblox.
CoinGeek - European Commission: Digital euro bill due for early 2023 - European Central Bank (ECB) gave the green light to a digital euro and that it will be proposed early next year. Public consultation is due next month and experiments are happening now with working prototype launching next year but the decision can still be made next year whether this is worth pursuing. Expected full go live would be 2025.
Marshall Islands officially recognizes DAOs as legal entities - The Republic of the Marshall Islands, a small island nation in the Pacific, proposed legislation to formally recognize DAOs as legal entities. Whilst the Marshall Islands is a small country (<60,000ppl and no central bank) with limited impact, will be interesting to see how the IMF, World Bank and US will react. Marshall Islands got serious threats after announcing its SOV, its decentralized CBDC, in 2018. The US threatened to cut the country off SWIFT (and their sole correspondent bank). Now the problem is that the US State of Wyoming also recognizes DAOs as legal entities. The IMF and WB have been very vocal against El Salvador (for different reasons) when it recognized Bitcoin as legal tender so will be interesting to see if they take a stance on DAOs. Other small countries that may look to be seen as forward thinking on crypto will be watching.
Bitcoin Magazine - Ukraine Legalises Bitcoin - with Russia border tensions at a high, Ukraine's parliament has backed a bill to legalise the cryptocurrency but it is not yet legal tender. It means crypto companies will be able to do business in the Ukraine but all of this will depend on what happens with cross-border tensions of course.
The Verge -Intel says its new crypto chip is designed to be energy-efficient - a new chip designed to mine cryptocurrency is being developed by the chip giant with former CEO Jack Dorsey’s Block venture being one of the first preorder customers.
Cointelegraph - Super Bowl 2022: Here’s the scoreboard of crypto ads - If you missed the Super Bowl last week, this post has you covered at least for the bounty of ads that saw a slew of crypto providers in the mix. This included FTX, eToro, Crypto.com and Coinbase. Check out the article for details of what each group did. They certainly made their mark.
ETHDenver2022 - we’re lucky enough to have one of our members (username Bleaknight in the Discord) on the ground for ETHDenver. Check out the link here for more about the event or the video playlist from the event to learn a bit more about it.
NRL media release - History made as Swyftx inks NRL’s (National Rugby League) first crypto partnership - Brisbane-based Swyftx is now the NRL’s official crypto exchange partner with a 3 year deal and options to continue to 2026.
Videos of the week
ETHDenver2022 playlist - In this playlist of videos you get to see a whole lot of content from the ETHDenver events going on right now including technical talks, fireside chats and more. 85 videos here and +++ hours of content.
The Defiant - Are we all Metamates now? - in this episode its an interview with Cary Reilly from Bankless and Juliana and Lana, the creators of the mobile metaverse place SomePlace (https://some.place/). We learn about how this came about and the concepts that drive this including technology, culture and user experience. 1hr40mins
ausbiz - Disrupting insurance on the blockchain - in this update, it’s a look at blockchain insurance with Etherisc and founder Christoph Mussenbrock on the show. There's a video each day for this series so check out more at ausbiz. 16mins
Coin Bureau - Crypto News: BTC Seizure, Polygon, Tesla, Aave & More!! - highlights of news from the week including BTC seizure by US authorities, Blackrock offering crypto trading and more. 22mins
The Defiant - Crypto is a Clown Show - In this video, The Defiant goes on to rant about a lot of the crap that’s going on in the crypto world right now. It starts with a great quote from Great Gatsby author F Scott Fitzgerald who said that “one should be able to see things that are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise”. It’s what it feels like in crypto and its current image problem. There is definitely a need for more of this to come out so we can move on with those providing proper value with the blockchain. 6mins
Coin Bureau - Polkadot: whats up with DOT?! Potential in 2022 - Great breakdown of Polkadot and their DOT native coin and ecosystem along with their complicated governance systems, parachains/threads and more. If you ever wanted to learn more about this project this is a great video! 21mins
Glassnode - The Week On-chain: Investors De-Risk Ahead of Rate Hikes - Week 7, 2022 (Bitcoin Onchain Analysis) - in this week’s addition the team at Glassnode take a look at derivatives and futures with details on how the on-chain metrics show investors de-risking ahead of pending rate hikes. 25mins
Charts and Data
CoinGecko
Top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap as at the 20th February 2021 11:57pm AEST on CoinGecko. A testing week as bitcoin and other major cryptos see further drops in price with BTC back to $38k and others losing ground.
Decrypt - Number of Ethereum Addresses Holding 0.1 ETH Hits All Time High - Number of ETH addresses holding around $300 in Ethereum reached 3,978,224 which is 10% growth in a year and 50% in 2 years. This low holding size is considered a metric of adoption for bitcoin holders so appears to be a good sign for Ethereum too.
Social post of the week
NFTs at the NBA All Star Weekend? It's not alien to see NFTs and the NBA together but it was cool to see Jalen Green wear one at the Slam Dunk Competition over the weekend. He took it off before his attempts and didn't do so well in the competition (though he was the favourite). Hopefully not an ominous sign for the space! https://twitter.com/SalmanAliNBA/status/1495238760409272322 -
Education
Project L3 Atom (Open-source Crypto Data Initiative) - Highlighting this Medium article from the crew at GDA Fund who presented at the Blockchain Sydney event on 16th February along with Aus DeFi members (Captain DeFi and Numbers) and supporters with their TradeFlows DAO. It's no mean feat to wrangle crypto data so this is worth checking out if data analysis is your thing.
Thanks again to our various newsletter contributors
Cam Crossley (see LinkedIn)
Jordan Franklin (aka The Happy Spender on TikTok/Instagram)
Rohan Agarwal (see LinkedIn)
Leo Luk (see LinkedIn)
Sagan Rajbhandary (see LinkedIn)
David Gikandi (see LinkedIn)
Gururaj Sundaram (see LinkedIn)
Nicholas Bishop (see LinkedIn)
Arturo Rodriguez (see LinkedIn)
Mark Monfort (see LinkedIn)
ItsCuzzo (see Twitter)
If you're interested in contributing to these newsletters in future - please join us on Discord or reach out to us on info@defi.org.au