Overview of Fundraisings of the Week
Bitwave Closes $15 Million Series A Funding Round Led by Hack VC and Blockchain Capital
DeFi Protocol Perennial Launches, Announces $12M in Funding
Digital collectibles firm Forum3 raises $10M to bring NFTs to loyalty programs
Paris Hilton and a16z back NFT artist pplpleasr in $7M fundraising round for Web3 video platform Shibuya
NFT-focused startup Metagood raises $5 million to grow ‘social good’ impact
Advanced Blockchain AG: Incubation Panoptic successfully closes USD 4.5 million funding round
OutDefine raises $2.5M to build web3 hiring community
The Mirror raises $2.3M pre-seed to fund indie game dev platform
Bitcoin miner 360 Mining raises $2.25 million as it scales natural gas production
Jack Dorsey-Backed East African Bitcoin Miner Gridless Raises $2M
DeFi
Weekly TVL
Gross: ⬇️$41.8B
Top 3 Apps: MakerDAO ⬇️($6.27B), Lido ⬇️($6.08B), AAVE ⬇️($3.75B)
Top 3 Chains: ETH ⬇️($24B), BSC ⬆️($5.45B), TRON ⬆️($4.39B)
Top 7D Change 📈: Hyper efficient multi-chain stableswap — Wombat Exchange (+8.5%, $142.16m)
DeFi News
[Ethereum Shanghai Coming 2023] Ethereum developers set March 2023 as a tentative shipping date for the Shanghai upgrade. The upgrade will enable staked ETH withdrawals and implement big EOF and warm Coinbase, etc., among other updates.
[Gnosis Chain PoS Activated] Gnosis chain has completed its Merge upgrade and transitioned from PoA to PoS.
[Maple Cuts Orthogonal] Orthogonal Trading, a crypto firm that has funds stuck on FTX, and is also a significant borrower on lending protocol Maple Finance, has defaulted on eight loans totaling $36 million on Maple. Creditor M11 Credit issued a default notice to Orthogonal for its loans, while Maple severed all ties with Orthogonal for misrepresenting its financial position.
NFT
Top 10 Collections by Weekly Volume
[ETH] Bored Ape Yacht Club
Average Price: $63.95k (-28.60%)
Volume: $12.08M (-90.07%)
Sales: 193 (+171.83%)
[ETH] Mutant Ape Yacht Club
Average Price: $12.76k (-28.38%)
Volume: $10.25M (+91.08%)
Sales: 827 (+174.75%)
[ETH] Azuki
Average Price: $12.54k (-29.34%)
Volume: $8.05M (+138.75%)
Sales: 646 (+240%)
[ETH] CLONE X — X TAKASHI MURAKAMI
Average Price: $6.84k (-38.51%)
Volume: $5.65M (+34.71%)
Sales: 853 (+126.26%)
[ETH] Valhalla
Average Price: $1.08k (+31.34%)
Volume: $5.32M (+292.67%)
Sales: 5,110 (+211.02%)
[ETH] Otherdeeds for Otherside
Average Price: $1.8k (-20.22%)
Volume: $3.43M (+44.24%)
Sales: 1,992 (-26.76%)
[ETH] CryptoPunks
Average Price: $88.54k (-9.07%)
Volume: $3.36M (-13.62%)
Sales: 38 (-5%)
[IMX] Pudgy Penguins
Average Price: $4.21k (-10.44%)
Volume: $2.76M (+191.28%)
Sales: 669 (+231.19%)
[ETH] Art Blocks
Average Price: $1.71k (-25.45%)
Volume: $2.64M (-23.32%)
Sales: 1,754 (+17.01%)
[IMX] Undead Blocks Skin Vault
Average Price: $831.16 (New)
Volume: $2.45M (New)
Sales: 2,953(New)
NFT News of the Week
Dec. 9, Starbucks launches NFT loyalty beta program “Odyssey”. “The test of the experiential program combines customer loyalty rewards with NFT collecting and other gamified elements.” [Source: CoinDesk]
Dec. 9, OpenSea creates NFT royalties cooperative COR Institute. “The charter of CORI is to create a decentralized body tasked with: Open, transparent governance of the existing Operator Filter registry and the policies that surround it; “Built in public” R&D focused on improving mechanisms for creator fee enforcement in the future” [Source: Twitter]
Dec. 8, Shibuya NFT Video Platform Raises $6.9M. “Shibuya, which lets NFT owners interact with its original content, raised a seed round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz and Variant Fund.” [Source: Decrypt]
Dec. 7, ImmutableX NFTs are now available on Nifty Gateway. “ImmutableX-powered NFTs from web3 games such as Gods Unchained, Guild of Guardians, Illuvium, Embersword and Planet Quest are now available on Gemini-owned NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway.” [Source: The Block]
Dec. 6, Warner Music Group to release Polygon Music NFTs. “Artists signed to Warner Music Group labels will release music NFTs through the upcoming Polygon-based marketplace LGND Music thanks to a multi-year partnership announced today between the major record label, the Ethereum sidechain network, and the Web3 music startup.” [Source: Decrypt]
Dec. 6, Nike subsidiary RTFKT reveals “Cryptokicks iRL”. “The Cryptokicks iRL is the first smart sneaker released from RTFKT featuring the next evolution of smart sneaker technology. The Cryptokicks iRL features auto-lacing, enhanced lighting, haptic feedback, gesture control, walk detection, App connectivity, AI/ML algorithms and wireless charging via the RTFKT Powerdeck.” [Source: RTFKT]
Dec. 6, Malta to remove NFTs from the VFA Act. “The authority considers that it would be prudent that certain VFAs, which display clear characteristics of uniqueness and non-fungibility, also be excluded from the VFA framework.” [Source: CoinDesk]
Dec. 6, Coca-Cola partners with Crypto.com to release FIFA World Cup NFTs. “The NFTs will be developed and hosted on Crypto.com’s NFT platform by GMUNK, a digital artist who previously worked with Nike, DoorDash, and musician Grimes. The 10,000 NFTs were generated by tracking the in-game movements of players in FIFA World Cup matches.” [Source: The Block]
GameFi & Metaverse
[Earn Alliance announces $4.75M seed financing] Earn Alliance announced the close of its $4.75m seed raise to connect game developers with fans and gamers across the globe. The alpha version of Earn Alliance’s platform is set to launch on December 15th this year. This round was co-led by CoinFund and Fabric Ventures with other participants such as Blockchain Coinvestors, MAD World Ventures, angel investors, etc.
[Catheon Gaming partners with Chainlink Labs] Catheon Gaming announced that it had established a channel partnership with Chainlink. The objective is to work together towards accelerating the adoption of GameFi. Both partners are looking to connect the ecosystem of Catheon Gaming with the oracle services & ecosystem of Chainlink. Chainlink and Catheon Gaming will work together on different aspects of marketing.
[Treble Technologies raises £6.9M for metaverse soundscape technology] Treble Technologies specializes in sound simulation for real-world applications as well as bringing hyper-realistic audio soundscapes to the metaverse. It has raised €8M (£6.9M). The seed round was led by leading Nordic VC Frumtak Ventures, with participation from NOVA (the venture arm of Saint-Gobain) and various angel investors.
[Aave acquires NFT mobile game Sonar for Lens social media integration] Aave has acquired Sonar, a mobile app whose users pilot non-fungible token-linked avatars through digital worlds, with plans to integrate its Lens social media protocol with the platform. It will integrate what it termed Lens’ decentralized profile system with Sonar’s avatars — cutesy emojis called “mojis” — to create a singular identity within its metaverse.
[Web3 blockchain gaming project Oasys closes strategic funding round] Oasys, a GameFi-oriented Web3 blockchain project, has announced it has closed a strategic funding round led by Galaxy Interactive, a VC firm, and Nexon, a gaming company. The round will allow the company to enhance its ecosystem by expanding its pool of partners to take blockchain gaming to mainstream audiences.
[Animoca Brands takes majority stake in music metaverse company Pixelynx] Animoca Brands has taken a majority stake in Pixelynx through its controlled subsidiary. Pixelynx is a music metaverse gaming platform founded by musicians and technologists deadmau5 and Richie Hawtin, along with music and gaming industry veterans Ben Turner, Dean Wilson, and Inder Phull. It is a Los Angeles-based music and gaming entity operating across five countries.
DAO
[Signature bank will shrink its deposit from the crypto industry] The once crypto-friendly bank signature announces to reduce its deposit size to $8 to $10 Billions from crypto companies and suggest an intent to move away from the industry. However, as an intimate partner of FTX, the crash of the exchange has caused turmoil in the stock price for the Signature band, although FTX’s deposit was merely 0.1%.
[Ethereum developer target March 2023 to enable withdrawal of staked Ether] EIP 4895 is targeted to implement in Shanghai hardfork, which is March 2023, to let users withdraw their staked Ether. The proto-danksharding will be implemented in the subsequent hard fork in fall 2023.
[Mirror.xyz now supports embedded NFT] The decentralized content publish platform Mirror.xyz announced that they added the NFT contract and token ID, any PFP, artwork and music NFT on Ethereum, Optimism, and Polygon can be shown on a mirror blog post.
[Chainlink staking now has been filled with 22.5M $LINK] Chainlink Staking v0.1 was finally made available for users to stake $LINK and help secure the oracle network. The staking pool was subject to the initial limited 25M $LINK cap, whereas 22.5M $LINK is allotted for community stake and 2.5M $LINK is allotted for Node Operator Staker. The 22.5M allotment was quickly filled.
Regulation & Adoption
- Dec 5 (🇷🇺) Crypto as a legal product to appear in Russia in 2023.
- Dec 6 (🇺🇸) Goldman Sachs to spend “tens of millions” on crypto investments after FTX collapse.
- Dec 7 (🇳🇬) Nigeria forces CBDCs by limiting cash withdrawals to $45 per day.
- Dec 7 (🇯🇵) Japan is considering a ban on algorithm stablecoins.
- Dec 7 (🇭🇰) Hong Kong passes crypto law introducing VASP (Virtual Assets Service Providers) licensing regime. The new regulation will come into effect on June 1, 2023.
Macro
- EUR/USD highest in 5 months.
- EUR/RUB climbs above 66 for the first time since July.
- BIS Warns of $80 Trillion of hidden FX swap debt.
- China eases COVID restrictions.
- US lawmakers approve record $858 billion defense bill.
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