Welcome to this 28th issue of the Chain Reaction newsletter published on the 25th May 2022.
What you can expect in this newsletter
Editor's Note
In the News
Community Projects
Community Views
What we're reading/watching
Data
Editor's Note (from Captain DeFi)
So just like that we have a new regime in Australia with the token holders (i.e. the voting Australian public) making their sentiment known that former leader (ex Prime Minister) Scott Morrison was not the one to take this Australiana DAO project into its next phase. All good. We move on with the Albanese reign so will see how it goes but we do hope this does not stop the move towards regulatory clarity in this space that's been worked on already.
In other areas we saw that there's a need to continue the education and fighting of FUD in the media - we put out a piece on this here highlighting that there's much more than meets the eye to the crypto space - https://www.defi.org.au/post/response-to-the-crypto-ponzi-scheme
We also saw the Sydney component of the Canvas to Token event we sponsored with Alisha Geary from Provvy leading the way and with other sponsors including the web3 incubator NotCentralised, the owners of our market site, Mercari, and the providers of the TVs with the NFT displays, Samsung. It was an amazing success and you can see some of the links to videos/images here:
And there's much more on our Twitter so check it out.
In the news
The following comes from BetaShares weekly crypto focused newsletter - check it out in full over here for more data analysis and other insights:
Also check out Justin's latest article on Livewire here: https://www.livewiremarkets.com/wires/prices-fall-but-conviction-grows
"Bank of America talks crypto
Bank of America (BOA), the second-largest U.S. bank, released a note last week. The analysts, led by Alkesh Shah, explained to investors that recent underperformance by the asset class was due to headwinds faced by traditional asset classes. These include surging inflation, higher interest rates and the increased risk of a recession. It stated that investors should also be aware that the cryptocurrency ecosystem is an “emerging tech asset class and the tokens that power the ecosystem trade like high growth, speculative risk assets.”
BOA also explained that the collapse of the Terra network was due to its prioritization of UST’s adoption over its price stability. UST is not backed by traditional assets and the loss of its peg shows the durability of the wider stablecoin market – the largest stablecoins maintained their pegs. The note said stablecoin regulation was expected to lead to increased disclosures for algorithmic stablecoins, but that an outright ban seemed unlikely. It would be “premature” and could slow the ecosystem’s growth.
Circle CEO reassures stablecoin holders
Two of the largest stablecoin projects by market cap, Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) are centralised, and the companies guarantee the stablecoin are redeemable for the $1 parity to the US Dollar. They achieve this by holding reserves that cover the funds for circulation.
Following the collapse of algorithmic stablecoin, TerraUSD (UST) project, Circle CEO, Jeremy Allaire, expressed on Twitter that Circle was “ramping up our efforts” when it comes to USDC “trust and transparency.”
According to a blog from Circle’s website, a number of key facts were laid out including “USDC has always been backed by the equivalent value of US Dollar denominated assets; USDC reserves are kept in the custody of leading U.S. financial institutions, including BlackRock and Bank of New York Mellon and the USDC reserve is held entirely in cash and short-dated U.S. government obligations, consisting of U.S. Treasuries with maturities of 3 months or less”.
CommBank pauses crypto purchases through the app
Commonwealth Bank has paused the rollout of buying and selling cryptocurrencies through its app. After announcing a pilot program in November, those on the pilot have been unable to trade. CEO Matt Comyn said that he was still waiting on regulatory clarity before advancing to the next stage and that the bank was awaiting the result of the Federal election on May 21. If a new government comes into power, it could spell broad changes in the crypto regulatory landscape. He said, “Our intention still, at this stage is to restart the pilot, but there is still a couple of things that we want to work through on a regulatory front to make sure that that is most appropriate."
Community Projects
This week we're showcasing the DoomsDay NFT project from community member, Matterism. More about it below and link here: https://www.doomsdaynft.io/
We have launched a fully on chain NFT survival game called Doomsday NFT. Doomsday NFTs represent Bunkers hidden below cities around a world on the verge of an apocalypse. As the apocalypse commences, space debris will barrage the earth annihilating Bunkers until a solitary Bunker remains being rewarded with 85% (up from 50% in Season One) of all token sales. Bunkers are currently being minted for 60 MATIC each with the current prize pool sitting at 12,571 MATIC. Any surviving Bunker can be evacuated. The Bunker will be destroyed from the game upon evacuation but the owner will receive a portion of the prize pool. As more Bunkers are destroyed, this should raise the floor price for those that remain, as they're essentially backed by a fraction of the prize. The real-world location of Bunkers is stored on-chain, with random impacts being calculated every 255 blocks (approx. 4.5 mins) using a transparent, immutable on-chain method, each hit rendered on the tactical map. A reward of 0.6 MATIC is paid to anyone who confirms an impact that hits a Bunker. The season one winner took home 255ETH.
some project imagery below
Community Views
This week we asked our community the following question:
Is the Australian election result a good or bad thing for crypto?
Here's some of the responses from our Discord
from Lizzard (Elliot)
In the interest of transparency with regard to government funded or facilitated projects I.e. the issuance of carbon credits then I think the new government would be more supportive of innovation. In terms of the monetary / investment side unsure on how they will react.
and skyfoxx
I think that crypto has matured to a place where it shouldn't be seeing whether a party is good or bad for crypto, but to a point where it can start to lobby for its own interests.
E.g. 1. Seeking out and influencing policy makers who are crypto friendly 2. Encouraging jurisdictions to attract startups in these areas 3. Connecting existing NGOs to existing projects that would be beneficial
and CaptDeFi himself
Many people may not be aware that as the opposition party, you don't get all the resources in the world when it comes to monitoring certain parts of the Australian economy and whilst the Liberal government in power was able to explore many things, I do hope that their hard work at pioneering the studies in this space are continued by the new government. Web3 and crypto are built on concepts of collaboration so I think that as long as that work is continued and we don't get a total restart of crypto assets being reviewed, we'll be in a good place.
Data as at 24th May 2022 - 5:50pm AEST
Market Moves (from CoinGecko)
NFT Moves (from CoinGecko)
What we've been watching/listening/reading
Busy week from the crew so not much to watch/listen/read on our part with the Canvas to Token event and a whole lot of work but stay tuned next week for more.
[Video] Bankless did this podcast from a year ago but it came up in our playlists again thanks to the algorithm - its Bankless talking about how we are in a modern renaissance with crypto and how much of what the move from medieval times to the modern era mirrors what we're seeing today with crypto. It's still true even now in 2022 and especially during this bear market we are in - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=karddOiv4ZA&t=3438s&ab_channel=Bankless
[Podcast] What the Fi - Getting to know the Community series - this was our podcast talking to the founder and initial client of the NFT project, The Dark Horse - check it out as this was our first 3-person interview and we learn about the talent that this project is supporting - https://open.spotify.com/episode/3aGQCKpCzuObpzY7rqdbfb
Get in touch
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
If you would like to dig deeper into why and how is the blockchain relevant to international matters and to get more insights on regulations and Defi knowledge , join us on our Discord: https://discord.com/invite/ZRCTDdsVEF
