November Recap
token & NFT updates, news, product developments, & funding throughout November
as always, thanks for reading and follow me and terv to reach out!
Tokens & Protocols:
ETH:
UNI — announces Permit2 & Universal Router (UR) that can aggregate ERC20s & NFT swaps into one transaction and more; UNI also details unitrade, “pro trading DEX for Uniswap with a CEX experience”; UNI launches their NFT platform
CRV — code & whitepaper for LLAMA stablecoin (lending-liquidating AMM)
MKR — delegates pass initial vote to add GnosisDAO (GNO) as collateral for DAI
YFI — proposal to activate vote-escrowed (veYFI) & tokenomics revamp begins
PENDLE — announces their V2 AMM & updates to DeFi yield markets
APE — APE staking deposits are live on December 5th with reward accrual beginning December 12th along with standalone marketplace for Yuga NFTs is live
MATIC — Instagram launching MATIC based platform for creators to mint & sell NFTs; Singapore completes cross-currency transaction using MATIC
SOL:
SOL — Solana Compass’ dashboard on unlocks, circulating supply, & tokenomics
SOL — Google Cloud announcements & Ledger natively integrated to Saga mobile
jitoSOL — “the first third-party, MEV-boosted validator client for Solana”, enables the ability to earn MEV rewards on SOL through liquid staking SOL for jitoSOL
Drift — perp protocol built on SOL, launches v2 live on mainnet
GRT — The Graph now supports SOL including all historical transactions
Others:
ATOM — surprisingly, the long awaited 2.0 proposal to establish the future of the Cosmos Hub voted no; ATOM participants will propose individual upgrades now
ACX — Across Protocol bridging token is live; raises $10M @ $200M valuation
SYN & CANTO — Synapse bridge support for CANTO officially live
DYDX — dYdX’s account tweets “loading dYdX Chain…87% complete”
Orderly Network, NEAR-based DeFi infra protocol, raises @ $200M valuation
AR — Arweave integrated with Instagram to permanently store IG’s NFTs
DFlow — ATOM-based appchain for hosting decentralized order flow auctions
It’s been one hell of a month. So, instead of reviewing what occurred and once again talking about the sociopathic fraud committed by SBF/FTX, I’ll just leave you with the usual list of what I think are the key things to monitor heading into December. Cheers to this month finally being behind us, and I’ll see you this weekend for Round Tripping.
macro — CPI data & FOMC 13th/14th, 50 or 75 bps hike, & hopeful resolutions to market clouds of DCG uncertainty, FTX fallout, & FTX hackers $237M in ETH
SOL recovery — led by strong NFT volume, growth of community led SRM fork OpenBook, & Neon’s EVM launch for ETH dapp compatibility on SOL Dec. 12th
ETH strength — outperformed on recent eco-wide rallies; catalysts to sustain on-chain activity for deflationary token issuance narrative gaining mainstream appeal
CRV stablecoin news, followed by AAVE’s GHO, dpxUSd, & likely others
LINK staking launch & details on distribution of BUILD tokens to stakers
APE rollout of staking & volume of their standalone NFT marketplace
BLUR 2nd airdrop Dec. 5th & monitoring their continued NFT volume dominance
L2s — their ongoing adoption, potential token airdrop news for zkSync, STRK, Arbitrum, & increasing percentage of ETH gas collectively used by L2s
ongoing DEX narrative & increased volume/users of GMX, DYDX, JOE, UNI, GNS
FXS emissions halving (Dec. 20) & continued liquid staking token frxETH growth
ATOM 2.0 veto fallout; monitoring individual proposals announced
clarity & news on upcoming chain launches including SYN, berachain, DYDX
ongoing tokenomics revamps & protocol updates from SUSHI, YFI, CHZ, ATOM
new protocol versions from Pendle (v2), Theta (v4), MPL (v2),
FTM Andre’s back with new ponzis likely; FTM well positioned & cash strapped
the below funding and news developments are not a comprehensively list of every announcement, but a selection of the most impactful announcements in October
Funding:
Binance commits $1 billion BUSD to its “industry recovery fund”
Matter labs, developer of zkSync ETH zk-scaling solution, raises $200M series C
OKX exchange plans $100M market recovery fund to help “high-quality projects”
Matrixport, crypto financial services firm, raising $100M @ $1.5B valuation
Bybit exchange announces $100M fund for institutional client support
TRM Labs, a blockchain analytics company, raises $70M in series B extension
Ramp, crypto payments firm, raises $70M series B
Wemade, South Korean gaming firm embracing web3, raises $46M
News:
FTX, Alameda, & SBF are bankrupt frauds; BlockFi officially files for bankruptcy
META — Instagram fully launches NFT product with native wallet connect & initial support for MATIC & SOL — Arweave (AR) to be used for permanent data storage
Justin Sun says Huobi & Poloniex exchanges could merge in the future
Nike readies to launch .Swoosh, a digital collectible marketplace for “Web3 wearables” that fans can collect and co-create
Man Group, largest publicly traded hedge fund, preparing to launch their crypto hedge fund strategies despite the collapse of FTX and centralized companies
Genesis Trading temporarily suspends redemptions for its lending business
Energy giant Shell working on BTC mining/cooling solutions
Space and Time, Microsoft backed crypto data warehousing and indexing company, joins Nvidia’s Inception startup program
Google Cloud partners with Aptos & SOL for validator and indexing services
Goldman Sachs developing crypto token classification service for institutional investors called Datonomy in partnership with MSCI & CoinMetrics
Fidelity announces Fidelity Crypto, commission-free trading of BTC & ETH
MoneyGram adds crypto tooling & ability to buy, sell, hold BTC, ETH, & LTC
Revolut’s in-app messaging feature will natively integrate NFT PfPs, Revcoin still planned to launch “early next year”
NFT Review:
This is by no means a comprehensive list of the ongoings in NFT land. I (tervo) have also been slacking this month so some of these projects have not yet been covered in depth - we’re back on track next week.
Familiar Faces:
10KTF was acquired by Yuga Labs with Beeple taking an advisory role
adidas dropped their first set of Virtual Gear and boy is it something
Art Blocks collections rise after free Friendship Bracelets mint for holders
Azuki collabs with clothing brand Ambush and Red Bull Racing F1 team
BAYC dropped as low as 46Ξ, spurred on by BendDAO liquidations (again)
Castaways airdrop Treasure Chests and Characters + new game updates
Clone X holders got their Project Animus eggs and new RTFKT forgeables
DigiDaigaku announces new partnerships with My Pet Hooligan and Ether Orcs
Killabears break through 3Ξ to end the month at all-time-high
Pudgy Penguins auctioned on Sotheby’s site + join Sappy Seals on cereal boxes
Treeverse teases their pre-alpha launch in November’s monthly update
y00ts revealed + launched their soft-staking system and y00tpoints
New Entrants:
Art Gobblers peaked above 20Ξ before criticism of their distribution and artist Justin Roiland’s past coincide with the FTX collapse sent Gobblers as low as 3Ξ
The Beacon, a roguelite RPG powered by Magic, held their Founder’s Character mint and launched their test version
Cel Mates brings mcbess’s cartoonish style to generative form
DegenScore rolls out The Beacon (lol), giving first access to those +700
Homa Games brings $100M and 1B mobile game downloads to the F2O party
Humankind sees Pablo Stanley and team craft a touchingly kind universe
KPR sees 2,000Ξ in volume before settling around mint price post-reveal
Pirate Nation is an RPG developed by the co-creator of Farmville
RarePass gives 250 collectors an opportunity to collect iconic cryptoart (for 17Ξ)
State of The Art is ThankYouX’s largest and most ambitious art project yet
Valhalla holders await reveal after minting in the latter half of the month
Upcoming Projects:
BAYC announces The Trial of Jimmy the Monkey starts on Christmas
Cockpunch sees author Tim Ferris venture into NFTs, for charity (and fun)
DigiDaigaku founder Gabe is still prepping the list for the upcoming Villains mint
Ether will release sometime in early 2023
Memeland, the next big fish, announced details around the Piratez collection
Porsche is preparing to release their first collection - 7,500 generative 911s
Market and Protocol News:
Art of This Millennium is a new global gallery from VincentVanDough and team
Blur continues to hold marketshare as they prepare for $BLUR airdrop
Joepegs announces $5M fund raise to continue building Avax NFT platform
Instagram rolls out their NFT marketplace on Polygon
MagicEden announced partnership with Polygon
OpenSea flip-flops royalty policy, launches copymint detection tool, adds BNB
Sony files patents for in-game digital assets on distributed ledger
Uniswap NFT aggregator is live alongside $300 USDC airdrop for Genie users
Lastly, thank you all for the continued support! We’re actively looking to expand our platform and relationships in the form of protocol partnerships, potential guest posts, sponsorships, branding, etc. so reach out to me or Terv if that sounds like you.