Welcome to this 22nd issue of the Chain Reaction newsletter for the week commencing 18th April 2022.
This week we saw Twitter in the news with Meme Lord Elon Musk making a $42 billion offer to buy the company and founder Jack Dorsey's ever tweet seeing its hype fade as it sells for far less than what it originally sold for upon turning it into an NFT. There was a $400m raise by Circle, more on the Lazarus hack and our very own official launch of our new podcast, What the Fi (see videos section for more).
Finally, in the social media section, check out the massive metaverse announcement from well known NFT Twitter account punk6529 who announced an open metaverse (OM). The concept is a more collectively built metaverse and this has resonated massively online so much so that we're seeing if there are other groups, associations and builders who want to colelctively build in that metaverse or others. Aussie districts anyone?
Anyway, check out all this and more in the newsletter below and make sure you hit subscribe so you can get access to updates directly to your inbox.
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
Cryptonews - First-ever Jack Dorsey Tweet NFT reauctioned, receives massively lower bid than expected as hype fades - The owner of one of Iran’s largest crypto exchanges bought Jack Dorsey’s first tweet NFT at USD 2.9m and expected to resale it at USD48.8m but the biggest bid he received so far is just USD 6,200. Meanwhile some crypto users consider NFT as just JPEG with no utility, others support NFTs and its potential use cases in exclusive memberships and future use in the digital world.
Cryptonews - Two New ERC standards aim to standardize Tokenized Vaults and add refund option to NFTs - ERC-4626 will ease tokens integration within the protocols and ERC-721R will force artists deliver on their promises and make them accountable enabling a refund from the mint contract.
Decrypt - Coinbase to Produce Bored Ape Yacht Club Animated Short Films - Coinbase, one of the most popular crypto exchange platforms, plans to launch “The Degen Trilogy’, a short film series featuring Bored Ape characters, as a way to promote their upcoming NFT marketplace.
Crypto Potato - Cardano founder explains what users should expect from the upcoming vasil Hard fork - Cardano founder announced new changes by june of this year. The protocol will incorporate scaling improvements, which will benefit Defi apps, smart contracts and decentralised exchanges (DEXs), and new products and features for its users.
CryptoPotato - EYWA: Building Cross-Chain interoperability for Defi Protocols - EYWA protocol, based on a Roll PoS mechanism, aims to improve interaction between defi protocols in order to make defi more accessible, easy and convenient for the mass user.
The Block - Circle announces $400 million raise, partnership with BlackRock - Circle, the company behind USDC, has announced a $400 million round. Another big step for the company that announced a new SPAC deal in February pricing it at $9 billion - double its previous valuation. Blackrock will join this round as a strategic investor, playing a role as an asset manager of USDC cash reserves.
Ava labs is planning to raise 350 million in new funding round. If the funding round is confirmed, Ava labs will join the unicorn club with a total valuation of $5.25 million.
Cointelegraph - Dozens of VIP backers invest $87M into crypto payment startup Moonpay - Public figures from music, sports and entertainment industries have invested in Moonpay start-up, which allows buying cryptocurrencias and NFT with credit cards or debit cards, bank transfer or mobile wallets. Currently, the platform has processed close to $3 billion in transactions through more than 250 partners sites, according to the company.
Decrypt - Animoca acquires Eden Games to make crypto racing games after F1 shutdown - After being unable to renew licensed Formula 1 game, Aminoca has acquired Eden Games in order to develop more play-to-earn racing games.
Cointelegraph - Museums in the Metaverse: How Web 3 technology can help historical sites - After being impacted by COVID-19, the tourism industry turned to web 3 technologies to exploit potential new business models. In this case, historical-sites are currently being benefited from NFTs to fund the restoration of old artworks, and expect further benefits from the use of metaverse to offer new immersive experiences, which may even rewrite the history.
#Regulation and Government
Cointelegraph - Texas regulators order virtual casino to stop selling NFTs - Texas State Securities board ordered the virtual Casino, Sand Vegas Casino club, to stop operating as it promotes a fraudulent investment scheme to fund virtual casinos in the metaverse. Texas regulators plan to investigate similar cases and plan enforcement actions in the NFTs area.
Coindesk - Crypto Trading Volumes in India Collapse 10 days after New tax: Crebaco - The introduction of 30% tax on profits on crypto and 1% tax deducted at source is negatively impacting the trading volume of major Indian crypto exchanges. Despite the negative market impact in the short-term, it is believed that it won’t stop the adoption of crypto in the long-term in India.
CryptoPotato - Ethereum Developer Virgil Griffith sentenced to 5+ years for speaking about Ethereum in North Korea - The former Ethereum developer was charged with conspiracy against the US after giving a lecture about Ethereum and smart contracts in North Korea. This was considered as a violation of the international sanctions that the US government imposed on the government of North Korea.
US Officials Tie North Korea’s ‘Lazarus’ Hackers to $625M Crypto Theft - The U.S. Treasury Department has sanctioned an Ethereum address confirmed by CoinDesk and Chainalysis to have taken part in the March hack of Ronin Bridge. The FBi alleges the address was controlled by North Korean hacking group Lazarus.
Charts and Data
CoinGecko
Top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap as of April 17th 2022 1:21pm AEST on CoinGecko. Another downtrend kind of week for BTC and other coins as it falls to $40k after a few weeks of gains.
Videos of the week
What the Fi - Episode 1 - this was our first proper podcast filmed from our awesome Crypto Hub studios in Sydney. Thanks to our awesome guests we were able to discuss topics such as ETHDenver, regulation, education and GameFi. More episodes to come but enjoy the first one for now! 41mins
Getting to know the Community - Episode 4 - Aus Defi Association - Getting to know another community member with Jordan, aka The HappySpender as we learn about how she got into crypto, her journey so far and what community means to her. 22mins
Bankless - The ETH 2.0 Proof of Stake Merge | 5 Things to Know - Looking at Ethereum merge to ETH 2.0 misconceptions such as being able to remove staked ETH as soon as the merge happens (false, that happens later) as well as the merge meaning gas fees get reduced straight away (also false and happens later). 12mins
Ausbiz - Ether Upgrade | Moonbirds NFT collection - a chat with Matt Willemsen from Collective Shift, a crypto research firm discussing Ethereum’s upcoming merge, the Ronin Hack on Axie Infinity and the Moonbirds NFT collection. 16mins
Social post(s) of the week
Open metaverse? Seems so in this massive tweet thread by punk6529 on Twitter - https://twitter.com/punk6529/status/1514718020849000461. We took the time to explore this open metaverse and seems pretty interesting. Check out some of the vide from us trying it out - https://twitter.com/AusDeFi/status/1514926164497747969.
Thread on Lazarus hack - https://twitter.com/mgnr_io/status/1448489251180474368
An important thread here from Mgnr.io and how they were the victim of a malicious cyber attack last October. This thread goes through how that happened and the security vs convenience tradeoff that was part of this. Whilst bad, it’s great to see a share like this where others can learn from it.
Education
Curve Wars explained in this video from Justin Bram on YouTube and how Convex accrues value to CVX - worth the watch if you have 10mins.
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