Hello hello hello. An interesting couple of weeks lie behind us with ever-growing glooms of a recession, but an overall increase of cryptocurrency gains across the board.
GENERAL: a16z going airborne.
a16z is moving its headquarters into the cloud and embracing the new post-COVID reality. "[…]we have configured the firm to be able to physically assemble anywhere in the world very quickly […] we are opening 3 new offices in Miami Beach, New York, and Santa Monica in addition to our existing Menlo Park and San Francisco locations."
INFRASTRUCTURE: The network state.
"Technology has enabled us to start new companies, new communities, and new currencies. But can we use it to start new cities or even new countries?" Balaji Srinivasan explains this notion in his book the network state. Vitalik Buterin, co-creator of Ethereum, post a review of Balaji Srinivasan's ideas on his blog: https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1547124298908725248?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
METAVERSE: Bored Ape Yacht Club stress test.
Yuga Labs is building their Metaverse play in public by doing occasional tech demos for token holders. Whilst I find them rudimentary, most people are impressed by them. ApeCoin surged 22% after the successful stress test.
GENERAL: Web3 use case follow-up
The last weekly update was all about Web3 use cases. SBF, the founder of FTX, chipped into the discussion. SBF illustrates three use cases: payments, market structure, and social media in detail on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/SBF_FTX/status/1548292354318036995
NFTs: Minecraft says no to NFTs
In a letter posted to its website on Wednesday, Minecraft developer Mojang Studios told users that the blockchain and NFTs isn’t in line with their values.
INVESTMENT: This time it's different.
Most crises are described as being different, yet most of the time they have large commonalities. CNBC still believes, however, that this crypto winter is different. The macroeconomic environment, a large influx of debt through centralized finance, and the collapse of Terra are all notable differences.
INVESTMENT: Three Arrows Capital breaks the silence.
The founders of 3AC share their viewpoint on how the entire catastrophe unfolded. The entire read feels like they are trying to blame others for what happened and that they were just little kids being a bit naive. The problem: they gambled with a lot of money, not just some pocket money.
https://twitter.com/Abs0lutelywrong/status/1550231309850742785