crypto recap 2/28 - 3/6

news, notes, charts, tweets and funding to recap the week in the crypto ecosystem

tl;dr: Ranging markets and slowing OpenSea volume. Attention continues to be on the uncertainty in markets led by Russia/Ukraine, the resulting sanctions, rising commodity prices, and potential upcoming rate hikes.

funding & news:

• a16z invests $70M in Lido ($LDO) liquid staking solutions, Lido also announces liquid staking for $MATIC is now available on Polygon

• Sherlock, protocol and smart contract security platform, hopes to raise $100M in a six day token sale event starting March 7th

• 101 CryptoPunks used in largest to-date NFT backed loan; $8M loan, 10% APR, 30-day duration

• Billboard and Universal Music Group partner to launch ChartStars, NFT collectibles that celebrate artist achievements

• Ukraine crypto fund tops $50M in donations; Ukraine plans to launch a NFT collection to fund their armed forces

• MoonPay purchases World of Women NFT for $754k on behalf of an anonymous buyer at Christie’s auction

• VALR, African crypto exchange, raises $50M; valuation @ $240M

• FC Barcelona announces plans to develop its own token/NFTs & metaverse

• Electric Capital raises $1B to invest in crypto startups and tokens

• Zignaly, crypto social investing platform, raises $50M

• DCG announces $250M share repurchasing program for Litecoin, Zcash, Horizen Trusts along with other Grayscale products

• Charles Schwab files with the SEC to create “Crypto Economy ETF”

• ThetaNuts Finance raises $18M seed round to continue developing “innovative DeFi structured projects”

• Alan Howard leads $7.5M seed round into social DeFi trading protocol Nested

• Shake Shack is testing demand for crypto payment options by offering BTC rewards through Cash App

• State Street to launch crypto custody services after regulatory approval

• Ken Griffin, CEO of Citadel and Constitution stealer, confirms the global market making firm will expand to crypto in the “months to come”

• Praxis raises $15M series A to build crypto native city of the future

thoughts & notes:

music NFTs continue experimentation & narrative building :

• while it remains relatively unclear exactly how/why/where to invest in music NFTs (as Soby promptly states), the momentum and forcing function of bringing them into the zeitgeist continues to occur

• following the announcement from Warner Music Group last week, this week brings us Universal Music Group and Billboard partnering to launch an NFT marketplace of artist collectibles

• inevitably, we’ll see the majority of artists going DTC (direct to consumer) in the future as they realize the potential and value creation/capture can be siloed to their inner circles without the need for intermediaries while simultaneously creating deeper relationships with their fans.

fees and inefficiencies drive institutions — “institutions are coming!!!” -Mark who was wiped out of his crypto holdings in July of 2018

• While regulatory uncertainty still hovers, the potential for fees, volatility, and inefficiencies in crypto markets are still driving the largest legacy institutions to develop their crypto investment and market making strategies

• Institutional names dipping their toes into the crypto waters this week include some of the world’s biggest: Charles Schwab, Alan Howard, Citadel Securities, and State Street

around the ecosystem:

• Shrey with thoughts around the potential of on-chain identity

• Casey shares a great thread on evaluating early stage crypto investments

• Msilb7 with a great Dune Analytics tab on Ukraine donations

• MessariCrypto provides a good thread on the current state of music NFTs

• Nichanan Kesonpat maps the current NFT financialization methods & protocols

tweets of the week:

Loopify 🧙‍♂️ @Loopifyyy

1/ My current thoughts on the NFT market. A thread from a 🧙‍♂️

Ukraine / Україна @Ukraine

Airdrop confirmed. Snapshot will be taken tomorrow, on March 3rd, at 6pm Kyiv time (UTC/GMT +2 hours). Reward to follow! Follow subsequent news re Ukraine’s crypto donation campaign at @FedorovMykhailo

Qiao Wang @QwQiao

A nation-state managing to raise over $35M worth of crypto amid foreign invasion and then airdropping tokens back donors is the most historic timeline I've seen in a while.

Cred @CryptoCred

Lars @lars0x

1/14 February summary 🧵 Most metrics continued to decline. Total adjusted on-chain volume decreased by 6% to $589B:

richerd.eth ᵍᵐ (マ,マ) @richerd

Introducing the Manifold Merch Bridge! 🖼 🤝 👕 Imagine having a Cool Cat hat that you only want to give out to Cool Cats owners that have that hat on their Cool Cat. With the Manifold Merch Bridge you can do exactly that.

manifold.xyz (マ,マ) @manifoldxyz

gm Manifold Merch Bridge! 🖼 🤝 👕 We've partnered with @shopify to streamline the redemption of merch with NFTs. Verified NFT hodlers can redeem merch from Shopify stores though token gated access on collections, tokens, and even individual traits. 🧵 https://t.co/gVniMGOQ0y

developing/current meta interpretation (s/o Cobie):

• outside of previous meta mentions music NFTs and the Cosmos ecosystem (withstanding the evmos delays and troubleshooting), there are seldom narratives and meta to be interpreted in cautious markets

• meta narratives (inherently rotations) flourish in up trending, money flying markets but dry up quickly in the face of uncertainty that we’re seeing now (and potentially for some time). we’ll always have our eyes open to the shifting narratives but forcing an action the market isn’t allowing is never a smart move.
  

as always, thanks for reading!!