Welcome to this 9th issue of the Chain Reaction newsletter for the week commencing 17th January 2022.
In the news last week we saw more details and growth in the NFT arena with a new challenger to the Open Sea platform in Looks Rare. We also saw partnerships and fund launches adding to the excitement in this space but bringing it all back to earth was the talk of upcoming regulation from the SEC.
If you like what you see and you're interested in continuing these awesome DeFi conversations, join us on our Discord: https://discord.gg/XPbnkFNC
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
NFTs in 2021: A Year in Review - A great year in review article showing the year in NFTs including a great chart comparing OpenSea projects. Lot of great charts in this and looks at things like momentum, the entry point that digital is to physical and more.
CryptoPotato - OpenSea Surpasses One Million Active User Wallets - Growth of OpenSea NFT volumes continues as does the number of users with this report highlighting 1 million active wallets on the platform.
CryptoPotato - Rio de Janeiro’s Mayor to Invest 1% of The City’s Treasury in Bitcoin - In more mainstream usage of crypto we see Rio de Janeiro's mayor announce the intention to allocate 1% of the city’s Treasury into bitcoin which will be a first in Brazil and follow in the footsteps of fellow South American country, El Salvador.
Stockhead - BTC Markets partners with tennis star Ajla Tomljanović as more women move into crypto - To add another feather to the bow of crypto organisations getting into sports endorsements we see BTC Markets (the only female led crypto exchange in Australia) get into a partnership with local tennis star Ajla Tomljanović. Women investing in crypto has grown faster than men (172% vs 79%) according to BTC's Investor Study Report.
CoinDesk - Decentral Park Capital Launches $75M DeFi Fund - the early stage investment firm Decentraland Park Capital announced it has added an additional $75 million (to its $140 million) to focus on DeFi investments. Moves like this will help to push DeFi into the mainstream in 2022.
CoinTelegraph - US lawmaker hints at upcoming crypto legislation as Jerome Powell says Fed will release report on digital currency soon - In this article it's back to the regultion game with the SEC saying their report on cryptocurrencies is ready to go within a few weeks. Many expect a CDBC (central bank digital currency) to be announced out of this so time will tell. Definitely an important step in crypto, no matter if you're bullish on pending regulation or not.
NewsBTC - Fed Chair Jerome Powell Argues Private Stablecoins Can Co-exist with US CBDC - In this article we see Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell advising the ability for stablecoins and a Fed central bank digital currency (CBDC) to coexist. This is challenged by Representative Tom Emmer, a crypto advocate, in this bill challenging the CDBC https://twitter.com/RepTomEmmer/status/1481283945492852743?t=CT3zuHW5rcPSN1VfYK9sbQ&s=19
CoinDesk - Binance CEO Zhao Is Worth $96B Excluding Crypto Holdings: Report - Binance founder CZ Zhao's net worth has been shown to be nearly $100 billion has been estimated by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. It rivals real-world business leaders like Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
AFR - When the Web3 bubble pops, real-world assets will survive - an interesting piece arguing that web3 needs real-world 'hard' asssets. This inspired many to weigh in and comment (including this author) on a LinkedIn post from BTC Markets CEO Caroline Bowler when she highlighted this. Whatever your thoughts are, we're certainly of the belief that a lot of innovation is going on in this space and it's necessary to heed and be aware of the criticisms.
AFR - The ‘rug pull’: crypto investors lose $4b in new scam - Great article by James Eyers on "Rug Pulls" in the world of #DeFi with some great analysis by Chainalysis Inc. Tips in the article include looking at whether the protocol's code has been audited (see OpenZeppelin or Quantstamp, Inc. as firms that do this).... another growing facet we see is the rise of DeFi related security tools or services that look to expose issues and risk... look for more of these in 2022 from the likes of (Rugdoc.io, defi.watchDeFiSafety, Rekt and the bug bounty platform, Immunefi). DeFi is great for the advantages it offers, but people also need to be aware of the risks. Here's to seeing the space get safer to really make this go mainstream in 2022!
Videos of the week
Real Vision - Raoul Pal's Sequel to the Exponential Age - In this follow up to his Adventures in Crypto videos series we see more of Raoul's thoughts as he learns more about crypto including price predictions, where this is headed and plans for the Real Vision network. 1hr2mins
The Defiant - Metis Andromeda Layer 2 is VERY fast and VERY cheap | Netswap Tutorial - Back to the tutorial and in this one we learn about a Layer 2 protocol with Metis. This helps anyone looking to create Dapps, tokens or other projects. 13mins
ausbiz - Will 2022 be the year of Bitcoin? | The Daily Forkast - In this video from Forkast, the team looks at bitcoins price outlook as well as top stories from around Asia (crypto mining on China's black list) and whether further developments on DeFi will help Ethereum increase their position in the total cryptocurrency market. 9mins
Whiteboard Crypto - Crypto Scam Revealed #1 - ($120,000) - In this short, they highlight the need to look at URLs in the world of NFTs but, how to avoid these scams and things to watch out for. 1min
Glassnode - xtreme Leverage at Extreme Depths - Glassnode Bitcoin Onchain Analysis (Week 2, 2022) - per the show notes, topics covered in this weeks episode includes The climate of older coin spending on-chain, Increasingly elevated levels of Open Interest in futures markets and the potential of a near-term short squeeze developing, as bear conviction chases the market down. 23mins
The Defiant - Looks Rare, but is it really an OpenSea killer? - Replay of this NFT episode from The Defiant analysing Looks Rare which has already passed OpenSea trading volumes just days after it launched. This episode looks at whether OpenSea is at threat. 1hr7mins
Charts and Data
CoinGecko
Top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap as at the 17th Januuary 2021 2:54am AEST on CoinGecko. A sea of green as most cryptocurrencies improved in price over the past 7 days.
Chainalysis
Crypto Crime Trends for 2022: Illicit Transaction Activity Reaches All-Time High in Value, All-Time Low in Share of All Cryptocurrency Activity - In this article, Chainalysis break down some parts from their full 2022 Crypto Crime report and show things like the total value received by illicit addresses from 2017 to 2021 and showed it hit an all-time high.
There is a lot more usage though, so as a percentage of the total crypto transaction volume, it is actually on the decline. More details in the report.
Social post of the week
2 posts this week beginning with this one on institutional investing. If anyone was looking for a reason to be bullish in crypto, seeing more instititonal money coming int the market might be a signal to look for more and more https://twitter.com/joshua_j_lim/status/1480977434489102341?s=12
The 2nd was this tweet thread from user Dingaling looking at whether wash trading is a bad thing or not. https://twitter.com/dingalingts/status/1481135479940874241
Education
In this weeks education piece we're looking at NFTs. Check out the video below from Whiteboard Crypto looking at how to set up an NFT and deploy it. Make sure to heed the warnings from the NFT issues that have been out there in the news recently (whether you're a buyer, seller or creator).
Thanks again to our various newsletter contributors
If you're interested in contributing to these newsletters in future - please reach out to us on info@defi.org.au