Weekly Web3 Workout — 4th October 22
Intro
Welcome to the Weekly Web3 Workout. This week we talk about the new wave of life-style NFTs, Alex Mashinsky doing Alex Mashinsky type things, crypto events, and of course regulation. So, on with the show.
Market Highlights
$BTC $20,382 +7.14%
$ETH $1,365 +3.29%
$YOP $0.04663 -3.63%
$USDT Market Cap $67.96Bn
$USDC Market Cap $46.85Bn
The Good…
Crypto Ethics
There have been more calls for increased transparency and heightened ethics in the crypto space. Co-founder of Thoma Bravo and bitcoin enthusiast Orlando Bravo, has expressed his disappointment that the crypto industry is not as ethical as private equity. Crypto needs to mature so it is taken seriously. Only then will it be given more of a chance to integrate with traditional industries and the benefits will be fully realised. https://on.ft.com/3dDhTVr
Bloomberg Tech Summit
There were some great talks at this year’s Bloomberg Tech Summit in London last week. I particularly enjoyed the talk on the current state of crypto from Edward Cooper and Irina Haivas. They raised some really interesting points on improving crypto platform UX and removing friction for mass adoption. This is such a barrier to entry! It’s so true that the crypto winter has got rid of many of the tourists in it for a quick buck and it is great to see the hard core left to get their heads down and build. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-28/crypto-crash-was-good-for-industry-weeded-out-tourists
Events
This week I will be attending Crypto Rewired hosted by OpenPayd https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/crypto-rewired-tickets-415838442977. The event starts at 5:30pm with the main talk from 6pm — 7pm, followed by drinks and networking. The main talk will cover things from the crypto winter, regulation coming into the space, and what The Merge means for Ethereum. Panelists include:
- Kaushik Sthankiya — Global Head of Banking and Payments at Kraken
- Daniel Moczulski — Managing Director, UK at eToro
- Oksana Grinchak — Managing Director, Europe at Amber Group
- Henry Child — Head of Tokens at Bitfinex
- Amanda Shoffel — General Manager and Chief Compliance Officer at Bitstamp
- Nick Charteris — General Manager, UK at Crypto.com
Revolut
In big news for Revolut and the UK banking space, Revolut have been given full regulatory approval to offer crypto services in the UK. This can only been seen as a positive step for crypto and innovation in the UK. After being on the temporary register for a long time, they finally got it over the line! https://www.uktech.news/crypto/revolut-crypto-approval-uk-20220927
USDC
USDC continue to expand their offering, going live on five additional blockchain ecosystems in the next few months:
- Arbitrum
- Cosmos
- NEAR
- Optimism
- Polkadot
This move will help reduce fragmentation and improve liquidity, assisting their quest to become the largest stablecoin by market cap.
US Regulation
In the US, President Biden is pushing congress for a quicker resolution to US crypto regulation in areas such as bitcoin and other major crypto assets, as top US financial regulators call for new laws in this space. There is a need to clarify how cryptocurrencies should be regulated ASAP, to ensure consumers are protected. but it needs to be done correctly so the legitimate businesses and use cases in the industry do not suffer https://on.ft.com/3EdyGsY
STEPN
I have finally got on the STEPN band wagon! STEPN is a web3 lifestyle app that rewards users walking, jogging, and running outdoors, with tokens that can be cashed out. The first move-to-earn mobile NFT game, powered by the Solana blockchain. I had to download the Phantom Wallet and get my SOL through Moon Pay. Then buy my new NFT trainers using the SOL I put in the STEPN app. Once done, I was ready to get moving and earning. This is a great example of the new wave of NFTs, with genuine utility and not just JPEGs of monkeys https://stepn.com/
The Bad…
Celebrity ICO promotion
The SEC is in full flow right now! People who were paid for promoting ICOs without disclosing them are being investigated and fined now. ICOs going right back to the early 2017 craze are being investigated. Given the amount of ICOs this was standard practice with, there could be a lot of these cases. The latest is Kim Kardashian paying a $1.26 million settlement over SEC allegations that she broke US rules by touting a crypto token without disclosing she was paid for the promotion https://trib.al/mkafZba
This is not the only case, recently ICO Promoter Ian Balina was charged with a similar violation. The SEC said Balina failed to disclose he was paid for his promotion of an unregistered securities offering for SPRK tokens between April and July of 2018, by the Cayman Islands-based issuer, Sparkster Ltd.
The Ugly…
Celsius
It just keeps on coming for Celsius and Alex Mashinsky! It now looks like he took $10M out of Celsius in the weeks before the company froze customer accounts and went under. You couldn’t make this up! He recently stepped down as CEO as he said he was a distraction in the bankruptcy case. So yeah, good job he’s not being a distraction any more. Whatever next! https://on.ft.com/3UPj7O1
And Finally
Last week I recorded a podcast with Bit About Crypto. You can check out their YouTube channel here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8iSxKVNaChnkxySDMjo6xw. We had great fun and talked about the 2008 recession, Satoshi and the creation of bitcoin, the creation of Ethereum, all the way through to DeFi and YOP Finance. It should be released soon, and I will share the details once it is available.
OK, that’s your lot. Thanks for reading the Weekly Web3 Workout and I look forward to sharing my thoughts and learnings with you next week. Please share this with all the web3 and crypto curioso out there.
Have a great week!
