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

• SRM —token forked for safety of the ecosystem by SOL devs;

• 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

November’s main fundamental & narrative driven tokens; visualized on Messari

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:

Volume through November via Parsec

• 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:

via Bored Ape Yacht Club on Twitter

• 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

• Rug Radio PFPs by Corey Van Lew are “coming soon”

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.