Sfermion's Collider

BREAKING: The S&P 500 has officially entered correction territory, now down -10% from its all time high.

Acyn

@Acyn

Bessent: We are going to keep the U.S. the dominant reserve currency in the world and we will use stable coins to do that.

Hunter Horsley

@HHorsley

When Bitcoin is at $200k —

We will look back on March 2025 and say, how was everyone not buying.

It was so obvious.

Bitcoin News

@BitcoinNewsCom

Bo Hines, Executive Director of the President's Council of Advisers on Digital Assets: "We want as much Bitcoin as we can get."

Crypto

David Sacks

@davidsacks47

Just a few minutes ago, President Trump signed an Executive Order to establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.

The Reserve will be capitalized with Bitcoin owned by the federal government that was forfeited as part of criminal or civil asset forfeiture proceedings. This means it

Naval

@naval

The US taxpayer should not be exit liquidity for cryptocurrencies that are decentralized in name only.

Matt Hougan

@Matt_Hougan

Impacts of the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve

1) Dramatically reduces the likelihood the US government will some day "ban" bitcoin;

2) Dramatically increases the likelihood that other nations will establish strategic bitcoin reserves;

3) Accelerates the speed at which other nations

David Sacks

@davidsacks47

nic carter

surreal feeling reading this paragraph courtesy of the President of the USA

Zack Voell

@zackvoell

this new coinbase ad is fucking amazing

Haseeb ＞|＜

@hosseeb

I passed on @solana's seed round in early 2018 at $0.04.

At current prices, that's a 3,250x.

Solana was one of my first ever pitches as a junior VC, and back then I wrote memos for every deal I passed on (adorably naive and overconfident).

Re-reading this memo now is peak

Solana

@solana

as we look back on 5 years of Solana -- share your favorite memory

how OG are you?

Vivek⚡️

@Vivek4real_

US TREASURY SECRETARY JUST SAID THEY WILL DISCUSS HOW TO BUY MORE #BITCOIN AT TODAY’S SUMMIT

IT’S HAPPENING!!!

Ki Young Ju

@ki_young_ju

Ethereum has faced record active selling over the past 3 months.

karbon 🐺🦊

@basedkarbon

Sam fucked up in more ways than one but besides the fraud I think his biggest fuck up was getting pressured into signing the bankruptcy docs.

As he said in this interview, FTX/Alameda would have ~$93B in assets if they had held their portfolio. The bankruptcy lawyers bottom

DEGEN NEWS

BREAKING: @TuckerCarlson INTERVIEWS @SBF_FTX

Coinbase Ventures 🛡️

@cbventures

The future of investing is open & onchain.

Coinbase Ventures is excited to launch the Base Ecosystem Group on @echodotxyz to support @Base builders. Like us, Echo believes in democratizing access to investing—so more people can back groundbreaking startups.

Why it matters

Omar

@TheOneandOmsy

Vlad from Robinhood dropping a laundry list of reasons to be bullish crypto at today's fireside:

TLDR: w/ the new admin, crypto rails will be the home to stocks, commodities, private company shares, prediction markets, memes, RWAs -> cross- composable and available 24/7

The

Sam Rosenblum

@sjrosenblum

Joining Phantom

My crypto career started at Coinbase in 2014, where I was lucky to work alongside a talented, mission-driven team and had a hand in scaling a small startup into a global leader. After five years at Coinbase, I transitioned into venture, first at Polychain and

BlockNews

@blocknewsdotcom

JUST IN: Total crypto market cap has experienced its second-worst decrease EVER just one day after its best increase ever

Plummeting $350,000,000,000 in 24 hours

a16z crypto

@a16zcrypto

On the latest web3 with a16z, @cdixon and @DavidGeorge83 explore the collision of AI, crypto, and beyond.

Timestamps:
0:00 – Introduction
1:06 – The intersection of AI x crypto
3:37 – New startups and models for creators
9:19 – A new economic covenant for the internet
14:37 –

Andre Cronje

@AndreCronjeTech

Tomorrow Cronos goes from $2.5bn mcap to $8.5bn mcap with a single vote and all it needed was a single voter.

1. mcaps are a meme.
2. Decentralization doesnt matter, until it does.
3. Immutability doesnt matter, until it does.

Laura Shin

@laurashin

At the last minute, Crypto.com went against its community’s wishes to push through a proposal to reissue CRO tokens that were supposedly taken out of circulation forever in 2021…

Nathan Covey

@nathan_covey

I don't think many people understand what is happening in software development right now.

I have a few friends with computer science degrees. Yesterday I asked them how they use AI. One said he uses ChatGPT “a little bit.” The others criticized AI and basically were in denial of

vitalik.eth

@VitalikButerin

AI as the engine, humans as the steering wheel:

vitalik.eth.limo/general/2025/0…

Robots.Fun

@robotsdotfun

AI agents have spent the past 6 months infiltrating every corner of the internet, but can they cut it in the real world?

Announcing @robotsdotfun - a Launchpad of Robotics AI Agents built by @frodobots, powered by @virtuals_io & ruled by @SamIsMoving

A thread - 1/4

B3 🎮

@b3dotfun

announcing B3's first AI Game Buildathon

build a game using ai. submit it on bsmnt. win up to $5,000

we'll be hosting a series of workshops with amazing partners such as @atari @Farcade_AI @base, & @thirdweb to help devs and gamers build, improve & amplify their ai games.

NFTs

Taproot Wizards

@TaprootWizards

IT’S TIME.

today we’re announcing the Taproot Wizards mint

2 years ago 2,121 Taproot Wizards brought magic back to bitcoin, and on March 25th, one of them could be yours.

read below for all the details

PTM

@ptmNFT

Big news! I'm excited to announce my close friend @AdamWeitsman has acquired my four Mega Mutants: Death Bot, Radioactive, Noise and Gold

I'm pumped to see these Megas join Adam's already legendary collection.

Gaming

Arbitrum Play

@ArbitrumPlay

@ArbitrumPlay has entered the lobby.

KGeN 🟩

@KGeN_IO

1,000,000+ POGs already!

Yep, things are out of hand now. More than a million POGs across 100+ countries

No POG yet? Seriously? Mint already and autosave your legacy:
play.kgen.io/pog

Jonah 🎮

I used to believe in web3 gaming. I made it my brand on ct for 4 years.

Feels like wasted time. I don’t see web3 gaming happening anytime soon. I do believe social casino games will work. But otherwise nah.

I’ve been here for a lonnnggg time

Ronin

@Ronin_Network

Introducing the Ronin Growth Playbook

A High-Signal Guide for Serious Web3 Builders

• Unlock hard-earned lessons from the rise of Axie, Pixels, and others
• Applications accepted on a rolling basis
• Created in collaboration with @crescendoweb3

Get the Playbook

:

FIFA Rivals

@FIFARivals

Skill, style, and pure football!

FIFA Rivals takes over this summer, watch the trailer now! #FIFARivals

Anichess

@AnichessGame

1/ Magnus Carlsen is stepping into Web3 - LIVE in 24 hours!

The GOAT, @MagnusCarlsen, enters the magical battlefield of Anichess. But who dares to stand in his way?

GM @hansenchess
@ysiu - Co-founder & CEO @animocabrands
@LucaNetz - CEO @Pudgypenguins

Spells.

Other

Will

@WClementeIII

Warren Buffett really sold the Apple top and stashed up $300 billion in T-bills before the worst drawdown in several years at 94 years old, goat

Alexis Ohanian 🗽

@alexisohanian

Exciting news for the digital world...

I'm officially now one of the people trying to buy TikTok US — and bring it on-chain.

TikTok has been a game-changer for creators, and it's future should be built by them↓

Andrej Karpathy

@karpathy

It's 2025 and most content is still written for humans instead of LLMs. 99.9% of attention is about to be LLM attention, not human attention.

E.g. 99% of libraries still have docs that basically render to some pretty .html static pages assuming a human will click through them.

Flo Crivello

@Altimor

The impending death of SaaS caused by AI reminds me of how all consumer manufacturing died out because of 3D printers

TBPN

@tbpn

Today, we are officially announcing TBPN. We are more than a podcast now.

- 5 days a week, 3 hours per day
- Streamed live on 𝕏
- Multiple guest call-ins per show
- Presented by @tryramp

Here’s a vibe reel.

david friedberg

@friedberg

America's Biggest Mistake?
A portion of every American's paycheck is deposited into the Social Security trust fund (OASI), which is then invested to create returns that aim to support long-term retirement payments.

Since 1941, OASI has ONLY invested in US treasuries, averaging

@novapilgrim

Warren Buffett is in talks to dump Berkshire’s real estate brokerage.

If the world’s most patient and calculated investor is getting out…what do you think happens next?

= Sfermion Portfolio Company

Curated by @mopat1214 + @AndrewSteinwold

If you enjoyed reading this edition of Sfermion’s Collider, please subscribe below, share within your network, and follow Sfermion on Twitter to get the latest!

Note: All information in this Newsletter regarding any company or investment is the sole responsibility of the company providing the information. Sfermion, and its affiliates, makes no representation or guarantee to the accuracy or completeness of the information presented. Sfermion is not responsible for any information contained in any links outside our websites and official social accounts.

Sfermion does not offer investment advice/analysis and makes no recommendations on how to act. Information regarding any company or investment in this Newsletter, including any links to information on our website, should not be viewed as an endorsement or recommendation of that company or investment for any purpose whatsoever. Any person receiving this Newsletter is encouraged to consult with their own financial advisor, or relevant personnel, before making any investment decision.

Sfermion's Collider #54

sfermions-collider@newsletter.paragraph.com (Mo Patel) — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:54:19 GMT

Sfermion is an investment firm focused on backing the founders building the metaverse.

Hello 👋

gm, we're back from our hiatus!

Welcome to the 54th edition of Sfermion’s Collider where we highlight the latest & greatest news in the world of crypto, gaming & entertainment, consumer trends, AI, macro, and more!

Bi-weekly, we aim to drop a curated list of the most exciting stories & updates that we believe are enabling the future of tech and the emergence of the metaverse.

If you're looking forward to reading this edition of Sfermion’s Collider, please don't forget to subscribe below, share within your network, and follow Sfermion on Twitter to get the latest!

Crypto Updates

Berachain Launches Mainnet and $BERA Token (link)

Unichain Mainnet is Here (link)

Story Protocol Launches Mainnet and $IP Token (link)

MicroStrategy Rebrands to Strategy (link)

Trump's Crypto Czar Sacks Says 'Golden Age' Coming (link)

Senator Hagerty to Introduce Stablecoin Legislation (link)

SEC Scales Back Crypto Enforcement (link)

Senator Warren Calls Out Banks for Crypto Debanking (link)

Trump-Backed WLFI Launches Macro Strategy Token Reserve, Collaborates with Ondo Finance to Bolster Bitcoin and Ethereum (link)

Avalanche Foundation Partners with Aethir to Fast-Track InfraBuild AI Grantees into $100M Ecosystem Fund (link)

0G Foundation Unveils $88.8M Ecosystem Fund for Decentralized AI Applications (link)

Circle’s USDC Hits Record Market Cap Over $56B as Stablecoin Demand Soars (link)

Tether Expands USDT Infrastructure to Ethereum Layer-2 Arbitrum (link)

UBS Explores Blockchain Gold Investment via zkSync on Ethereum (link)

Robinhood’s Crypto Revenue Soars 700% in Q4, Driving Record Profit (link)

Barstool Founder Dave Portnoy Promotes Jailstool Token in Response to Backlash from Memecoin Trades (link)

Gaming Updates

Gaming network B3 (💰) officially executes their airdrop and launches the $B3 token, listed on Coinbase (link)

PlayEmber (💰) and Pudgy Penguins launch “Penguin Life” mobile game on Abstract (link)

Ethereum Gaming Network Ronin Opens Up (link)

Neopets Hits 400,000 Monthly Active Users, Tripling Growth in 2024 (link)

AI Updates

OpenAI Unveils a New ChatGPT Agent for Deep Research (link)

SoftBank commits to joint venture with OpenAI, will spend $3B per year on OpenAI’s tech (link)

SoftBank Set to Invest $40B in OpenAI at $260B Valuation, Sources Say (link)

Macron Unveils a $112B AI Investment Package as France’s Answer to Stargate (link)

Sam Altman Rejects Elon Musk’s Offer to Buy OpenAI Control and Mocks X (link)

Augmented Intelligence: Christie’s AI Art Auction (link)

Other Updates

Trump Tariffs Target Mexico, Canada, and China Imports (link)

Trump Orders Creation of US Sovereign Wealth Fund (link)

Federal Workers Offered 20,000 Buyouts by White House (link)

Meta Cuts 3,600 Jobs (5% of Workforce) in AI Focus Shift (link)

Zelle Payments Top $1T in 2024 (link)

Robinhood Yanks Super Bowl Betting Contracts After Regulators’ Pushback (link)

Charles Schwab Expands 24-Hour Trading to All Its Retail Clients (link)

Olipop Prebiotic Soda Valued at $1.85B in Funding Round (link)

Daniel Penny Gets Hired by Andreessen Horowitz (link)

Research & Interesting Reads

Archetype | Crypto Rails: Superconductors for Payments (link)

Multicoin | Inverting The Human-Agent Relationship (link)

Decentralised | When DeFi Met AI: Exploring the Intersection of Decentralized Finance and Artificial Intelligence (link)

NFT Drops & Updates

OpenSea Releases OS2 NFT Platform in Beta, Teases SEA Token Airdrop (link)

NFT Brand Doodles to Launch Solana-Based Token Called $DOOD (link)

PENGU Price Falls as Pudgy Penguins Burn Over $150M in Solana Tokens (link)

Notable Raises

Mighty Bear Games (💰) raises $4M for GOAT Gaming platform where AI agents earn rewards for players (link)

Cherry Ventures Launches $500M Fund to Propel Europe’s First Trillion-Dollar Company (link)

Steve Yun, TON Foundation veteran, launches $100M VC fund TVM Ventures (link)

Türkiye’s Laton Ventures Raises $50M to Invest in Global Game and App Startups (link)

Taproot Wizards Raises $30M to Expand OP_CAT Functionality on Bitcoin (link)

HashKey Group secures $30M investment from Gaorong Ventures (link)

Plasma Raises $24M Led by Framework and Bitfinex to Build the Leading Blockchain for Stablecoins (link)

Legend, an All-in-one DeFi Superapp, secures $15M First Funding Round from a16z and Coinbase Ventures (link)

Reservoir Raises $14M to Enhance Token Trading Infrastructure (link)

Olas Raises USD 13.8M to Launch a Decentralized AI Agent Pearl (link)

Beamable Raises $13.5M, led by Bitkraft, for Decentralized Open-Source Backend for Games (link)

GameFi project GamerBoom completes $9M in new round of financing, with NVIDIA and others participating (link)

NodeGo Secures $8M to Expand Decentralized AI Infrastructure (link)

Japanese Game Maker Gumi Announces $6.6M Bitcoin Purchase (link)

Blum Raises $5M for AI-Powered Crypto Trading on Telegram (link)

Flashnet Raises $4.5M in Oversubscribed Seed Round Led by Abstract VC (link)

Mechanism Capital Leads $4M Seed Round for Consumer-Facing AI Agent Developer Mirai Labs (link)

Cabal, an Initia-based Yield-generating Governance Protocol, Raised $3M in a Funding Round from Hack VC (link)

InfiniFi, Depositor-Driven DeFi System, Raised $3M in a Pre-Seed Funding Round Led by Electric Capital (link)

Berachain Ecosystem Project Henlo Announces Completion of $3M Seed Raise (link)

Anoma Secures $2.5M Strategic Funding for Blockchain Infrastructure (link)

Mo & Andrew's Curated

Macro

Elon Musk

The @DOGE team just discovered that FEMA sent $59M LAST WEEK to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal migrants.

Sending this money violated the law and is in gross insubordination to the President’s executive order.

That money is meant for American disaster relief…

Senator Bill Hagerty

@SenatorHagerty

Today, I’m introducing the GENIUS Act w/ @SenatorTimScott, @SenGillibrand, & @SenLummis, a bill that establishes a clear regulatory framework for stablecoins.

I look forward to working with @RepFrenchHill and @FinancialCmte to get it to the President’s desk and signed into law.

Bloomberg

@business

Senator Bill Hagerty will introduce legislation to create a framework for stablecoins, the latest push to create crypto-friendly guidelines for an industry that’s a priority for Donald Trump trib.al/5YIkabN

The Kobeissi Letter

It's official:

The Fed's Reverse Repo Facility (RRP) is now down ~$2.5 TRILLION from its peak in December 2022.

The US is borrowing so much debt to fund deficit spending that the RRP has been DEPLETED to a 1,386 day low.

What does it mean? Let us explain.

(a thread)

Bitcoin Archive

@BTC_Archive

JUST IN: University of Austin to buy $5m Bitcoin.

"We don’t want to be left behind" says CIO of the university fund.

Crypto

Sebastian Siemiatkowski

@klarnaseb

Ok. I give up. Klarna and me will embrace crypto! More to come

Yes I know! This post will get a huge sigh and 2 views

But it still feels historic. Last large fintech in the world to embrace it. Someone had to be last. And that’s a milestone as well of some sort…

Story (꧁IP꧂)

@StoryProtocol

Story's Public Mainnet launches on Thursday, February 13th.

$IP claim and checker go live on the same day.

The world's IP, in your hands. ꧁IP꧂ is inevitable.

matthew sigel, recovering CFA

We analyzed 20 state-level Bitcoin reserve bills.
If enacted, they could drive $23 billion in buying, or 247k BTC.
This sum is independent of any pension fund allocations, likely to rise if legislators move forward.

Avichal - Electric ϟ Capital

@avichal

Tether is likely the most profitable company in the world per employee.

Goldman Sachs - $288,172 profit per employee
Meta Platforms - $455,586
Apple - $571,341
NVIDIA - $1,006,757
Tether - $85,625,000 profit per employee

It just looks silly when you graph it

DEGEN NEWS

BREAKING: SEC COMMISSIONER HESTER PEIRCE STATES "IF PEOPLE WANT TO BUY A TOKEN OR PRODUCT THAT LACKS A CLEAR LONG-TERM VALUE PROPOSITION, THEY SHOULD FEEL FREE TO BUT SHOULD NOT BE SURPRISED IF SOMEDAY THE PRICE DROPS"

Shaw (wartime arc)

@shawmakesmagic

I would advise you to think twice about launching a fair launch coin if you intend on using it to fund a long-duration project.

Teams need resources to build. Generally, when a team raises a Series A from VCs, they give away 10-20% and keep 80-90% of the initial capital. If the…

Solana

@solana

Meet Israel, owner of Rifados Taquería — saving on fees by accepting stablecoin payments with @venta_xyz

swing by for tacos during Solana APEX, coming to Mexico City on Feb. 7th

Benjamin Cowen

@intocryptoverse

The supply of #ETH will likely reach the pre-merge supply within the next few weeks. It is currently increasing by about 45k ETH/month, but the supply is only 32k ETH away from the pre-merge supply.

Back in July 2024, I mentioned it could happen by December if the supply…

Benjamin Cowen

@intocryptoverse

If the supply of #ETH keeps increasing by ~60k/month like it has been since April, then by Dec the supply will be back to what it was at the merge.

Could be a narrative that people focus on later this year, when they should actually focus on monetary policy.

Thread

Nate Geraci

@NateGeraci

SEC now has a "crypto" email address...

Never thought I'd see the day.

BlockNews

@blocknewsdotcom

Adin Ross just bought $50,000 worth of $MLG live on stream

Brett Adcock

@adcock_brett

Today, I made the decision to leave our Collaboration Agreement with OpenAI

Figure made a major breakthrough on fully end-to-end robot AI, built entirely in-house

We're excited to show you in the next 30 days something no one has ever seen on a humanoid

Justine Moore

@venturetwins

New @a16z thesis: building websites / apps with AI

There's been an explosion of products that help users "vibe code" a web app from text prompts.

We dove deep on these tools - who's using them, how they work, and where they might be headed.

Our market map + insights

Qwen

@Alibaba_Qwen

The burst of DeepSeek V3 has attracted attention from the whole AI community to large-scale MoE models. Concurrently, we have been building Qwen2.5-Max, a large MoE LLM pretrained on massive data and post-trained with curated SFT and RLHF recipes. It achieves competitive…

Ord.io

@ord_io

BREAKING: @HyperliquidX just launched a bridge to Bitcoin L1 and has integrated with @XverseApp

NFT

doodles

introducing $DOOD, the official token of Doodles.

the creative revolution is here.

MegaETH

@megaeth_labs

Introducing our Flagship MegaETH NFT Collection: The Fluffle.

10,000 NFTs, soulbound, representing meaningful ownership in the MegaETH network.

TylerD 🧙‍♂️

Just In: Sam Spratt's "X. Masquerade" 1/1 sells to Kanbas for $3,000,000

1,158 ETH equivalent

One of the single biggest digital art sales in years...

h/t @RogerDickerman

Gaming

KGeN 🟩

@KGeN_IO

Gaming isn't just another use case for AI. It's been AI's secret training ground all along.

Why are we building gaming's first specialized LLM?

Long before X was swarmed with slop bots and ChatGPT wrappers, gaming was quietly perfecting AI. NPCs were learning player behavior,…

B3 🎮

@b3dotfun

$B3 is launching on @Base this Monday, February 10th on Bybit + other major exchanges.

to usher in a new golden era of gaming, we can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results.

B3 scales gaming on Base’s thriving ecosystem, opens doors to collaboration & brings a…

Playember

@play_ember

Penguin Life is now LIVE

Huddle up, climb the leaderboard, and earn rewards and Abstract XP!

Links below

Peter / ‘pet3rpan’

@pet3rpan_

x.com/i/article/1884…

technoir 🎮

@0xtechnoir

Excited to finally share BITKRAFT's latest thesis piece on crypto x AI x gaming (linked at the end)

Here's a few highlights to wet your appetite

Other

@jason

@Jason

Just ban these stupid fucking meme coins @SECGov

Aaron Levie

@levie

This chart is insane. AI has now enabled the creation of the fastest growing software product maybe of all time.

💰 = Sfermion Portfolio Company

Curated by @mopat1214 + @AndrewSteinwold

If you enjoyed reading this edition of Sfermion’s Collider, please subscribe below, share within your network, and follow Sfermion on Twitter to get the latest! Check out our Seam (💰) bio here :)

Sfermion's Collider #53

sfermions-collider@newsletter.paragraph.com (Mo Patel) — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 21:00:00 GMT

Sfermion is an investment firm focused on backing the founders building the metaverse.

Hello

Welcome to the 53rd edition of Sfermion’s Collider where we highlight the latest & greatest news in the world of crypto, gaming & entertainment, consumer trends, AI, macro, and more!

Bi-weekly, we aim to drop a curated list of the most exciting stories & updates that we believe are enabling the future of tech and the emergence of the metaverse.

If you're looking forward to reading this edition of Sfermion’s Collider, please don't forget to subscribe below, share within your network, and follow Sfermion on Twitter to get the latest! Check out our Seam bio here :)

Crypto Updates

Trump nominates Paul Atkins to replace Gary Gensler at SEC (link)

Trump Names David Sacks as White House AI and Crypto Czar (link)

Trump Nominates Pro-Crypto Hedge Fund Manager Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary (link)

Pennsylvania Legislators Introduce Bill to Invest in Bitcoin and Crypto ETFs as a Hedge Against Inflation (link)

Former Facebook exec says Diem (Libra) stablecoin fell victim to a political kill (link)

Bitwise Acquires Ethereum Staking Provider Attestant and Its $4 Billion in Staked Assets (link)

Franklin Templeton Expands $410M Money Market Fund to Ethereum Blockchain (link)

Mastercard and JPMorgan Link Up to Bring Foreign Exchange on the Blockchain (link)

Tether Unveils New Platform to Simplify Asset Tokenization for Businesses and Nation-States (link)

Tether to Shutter Euro Stablecoin as Key MiCA Deadline Looms (link)

Deutsche Telekom to Pilot Bitcoin Mining Scheme Using Surplus Energy (link)

Charles Schwab Plans to Offer Clients Direct Crypto Investments (link)

Ethereum Layer 2 Network Linea (by Consensys) Token Plans (link)

ENS Labs Unveils Namechain Layer 2 Launching in 2025; ENS Token Jumps 10% (link)

Bitcoin Flips Silver, Becomes Eighth Largest Asset by Market Cap (link)

BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF Surpasses Its Gold ETF in Net Assets (link)

Rumble Announces Bitcoin Treasury (link)

MicroStrategy acquires another 15,400 bitcoin for $1.5B, taking holdings to 402,100 BTC (link)

FairShake PAC Secures $103M for 2026 Midterm Elections After Ripple Donation (link)

Xion Foundation () officially launches $XION and $12.6M Anti-Grant Grant Program with Thrive Protocol (link)

Beam Foundation, Aethir, and Metastreet () Unite to Launch Tactical Compute, a $40M AI Compute Project (link)

Coinbase adds Apple Pay onramping support (link)

Coinbase Acquiring Utopia Labs Team to Accelerate Onchain Payments (link)

WikiLeaks Turns to Bitcoin Blockchain to Protect Assange’s Afghan War Logs (link)

Pump.fun Restricts UK Access (link)

Bluesky Hits 15M Users, Pushing Back Against X (link)

Hawk Tuah Memecoin Plummets Amid Controversy (link)

Gaming Updates

Nifty Islands () announces $ISLAND TGE for December 17th (link)

Mythical () Partners With FIFA for Rivals Game Launching Summer 2025 (link)

Echelon Prime and B3 () partner for gaming chain solution (link)

BreederDAO () Rebrands to Sovrun (link)

VanEck Invests in Web3 Gaming Startup Gunzilla (link)

YGG () Onchain Guilds Launch on Base (link)

Moonray () Integrates with Coinbase’s Base for Enhanced Web3 Gameplay (link)

Bitget Wallet Secures $20M to Support Telegram Mini-Apps (link)

Sky Mavis Slashes 21% of Workforce (link)

Embracer Divests Easybrain to Miniclip in $1.2B Deal (link)

Modern Times Group to Acquire Raid: Shadow Legends Maker Plarium for $620M (link)

Game7 | State of Web3 Gaming 2024 Report (link)

Mobile Gaming Expected to Generate $98.7B Globally (link)

Nazara Nets $100M to Accelerate Strategic Acquisitions and Expansion Plans (link)

Nazara Partners With Lysto to Launch New Layer-1 Growth Protocol (link)

Next Up for Netflix Games: An AI-Powered Stardew Valley Alike and Dual-Screen Gaming (link)

Pokémon TCG Pocket Reportedly Surpassed Over $200M in First Month (link)

Ubisoft Discontinues Development on XDefiant (link)

AI Updates

Elon Musk’s xAI Raising Up to $6B to Purchase 100,000 NVIDIA Chips for Memphis Data Center (link)

Business Spending on AI Surged 500% This Year to $13.8 Billion, Says Menlo Ventures (link)

Google DeepMind Open-Sources AlphaFold 3, Ushering in a New Era for Drug Discovery (link)

Meta Reportedly Planning $10B Global Undersea Cable Network (link)

Meta to Build $10B AI Data Center, Largest Globally, in Louisiana’s Richland (link)

Japan Earmarks Extra $9.9B for Chip Industry Subsidies (link)

Amazon announces Nova, a new family of multimodal AI models (link)

Key Leaders Behind Google’s Viral NotebookLM Are Leaving to Create Their Own Startup (link)

DeepMind’s Genie 2 Can Generate Interactive Worlds That Look Like Video Games (link)

OpenAI and Anduril Team Up for U.S. Military’s National Security AI (link)

Google | Veo and Imagen 3: Announcing new video and image generation models on Vertex AI (link)

Bezos Backs AI Chipmaker Vying with Nvidia at $2.6B Value (link)

Other Updates

Republicans Keep Control of US House in Power Sweep (link)

Trump’s Doge-Led Effort with Musk and Ramaswamy Aims to Cut $2.7T in Waste (link)

Trump Vows Additional 10% Tariff on China, 25% Tariffs on Canada and Mexico (link)

Google Faces Lawsuit Over Alleged Advertising Monopoly (link)

Corporate Security Concerns Rise After UnitedHealthcare CEO Shooting (link)

Buy Now, Pay Later Giant Klarna Files for US IPO (link)

BlackRock buying credit investment manager HPS Investment Partners in approximately $12B deal (link)

Jersey Mike's sandwich chain is acquired by private equity firm Blackstone for $8B (link)

Walmart Closes $2.3B Acquisition of Vizio (link)

Wonder Announces Acquisition of Grubhub, at enterprise value of $650M (link)

Capri and Tapestry Abandon Plans to Merge, citing regulatory hurdles (link)

Spirit Airlines Files for Bankruptcy Amid Industry Turmoil (link)

Amazon Haul Discount Storefront Debuts to Take on Temu and Shein (link)

Amazon sellers are flocking to TikTok Shop despite looming US ban (link)

Trump Chooses Billionaire Astronaut Jared Isaacman to Run NASA (link)

Judge rejects Tesla's attempt to revive Elon Musk's $56B pay package (link)

The Rivian-Volkswagen Joint Venture Deal Is Now Up to $5.8B (link)

Oura Valued at $5B Following Major Investment Deal (link)

EU Fines Meta $843M Over Marketplace Classified Ads (link)

Donald Trump Jr. Opts Out of White House to Join 1789 Capital (link)

Stocks Could Trade All Night on Proposed 24/7 Exchange (link)

Spotify Takes Aim at YouTube in Battle for Podcasts (link)

Research & Interesting Reads

a16z crypto | Big Ideas in Crypto 2025 (link)

a16z crypto | DeBanking Explained (link)

a16z crypto | Understanding Stablecoins & Banking History (link)

a16z crypto | Seven Things to Help Seize the Web3 Opportunity (link)

Naavik | Off the Grid Takes on the Shooter Market (link)

Delphi | Gaming Year Ahead 2025 Report (link)

Placeholder | David and Goliath: How Web3 Can Compete in AI (link)

Accelxr/1kx | AI Agents: Research and Applications (link)

Collab+Currency | Crypto x Consumer AI (link)

Grayscale | When You Give an AI a Wallet (link)

Binance | Exploring the Future of AI Agents in Crypto (link)

Pivot Global | DePIN: The Beginning of the End for Traditional Infrastructure (link)

6MV | DePIN: An Evaluation Framework (link)

Collab+Currency | Growing Consumer DePIN (link)

Galaxy | Bitcoin Layer 2 and the Modular Future (link)

Pantera | 1,000x: Pantera Bitcoin Fund (link)

Binance | The Fed, Interest Rates, and the Economy: A Primer (link)

Konvoy | The Collectibles Market: A $142B Opportunity (link)

The Most Popular VTubers: Everything You Need to Know (link)

NFT Drops & Updates

Magic Eden officially launches $ME, massive airdrop for platform users (link)

Pudgy Penguins Expands to Solana With New $PENGU Token Launch Plans (link)

Nike's NFT Arm RTFKT to Shut Down After Launching Final Collection (link)

Shaq Agrees to $11M Settlement in Solana NFT Lawsuit (link)

Kraken to close NFT marketplace, shift focus to other projects (link)

Adidas and STEPN () Move from NFTs to Physical Products with Planned Sneaker Drop This Month (link)

Yuga Labs acquires Tokenproof tech team to boost NFT R&D (link)

McDonald's McNugget Buddies NFT Collection (link)

Peter Schiff Launches Bitcoin Ordinals Collection (link)

Notable Raises

Anthropic Raises an Additional $4B from Amazon, Makes AWS Its Primary Cloud Partner (link)

Hut 8 Raises $500M to Buy Bitcoin as Strategic Reserve Asset (link)

Crypto-AI startup 0G Labs raises $40M seed and receives $250M token purchase commitment (link)

Writer Raises $200M at $1.9B Valuation (link)

Play Ventures Launches $140M Fund to Invest in Gaming (link)

$115M Crypto Fund Plans Latin America Investment (link)

Merak Capital Launches $80M Fund to Support MENA Games Startups (link)

USDXMoney, stablecoin infra, Secures $45M New Financing at $275M Valuation (link)

Avalanche9000 launches on testnet with $40M for developers building on the network (link)

Yurts Raises $40M to Be the DOD’s AI Chatbot (link)

Crypto Casino Monkey Tilt Raises $30M Series A Led by Pantera Capital (link)

Justin Sun invests $30M in Trump World Liberty Financial (link)

How Wordware’s $30M Seed Round Could Disrupt the Entire AI Development Industry (link)

SayGames to Invest $30M in Hybrid Casual Studios Over Next Three Years (link)

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) Platform Appcharge Secures $26M (link)

Alluvial Raises $4.3m Strategic Round (Total Funding to $22.5M) to continue developing their enterprise staking standard (link)

StakeStone secures $22M investment round led by Polychain Capital, with strategic investments from Binance Labs, and OKX Ventures (link)

Pantera Capital raises $20M to back Telegram-linked blockchain TON (link)

DWF Labs Launches $20M Memecoin Fund (link)

Ruckus Games Raises $19M for Suburban Invasion RPG Shooter with Disruptive Multiplayer (link)

Finland’s Bit Odd, Former Supercell leads, Raises $18.2M with Eccentric Approach to Mobile Games (link)

Zurich-Based Wyden Raises $15.9M (link)

Noble Closes $15M Series A to Fuel Growth of Digital Asset Issuance Platform (link)

Neon Raises $14M to Build Direct-to-Consumer Stores for Games (link)

Union Labs, a Connector of Blockchains, Raises $14M in Series A Round (link)

Deblock Raises $13.3M in Fresh Funding for Crypto Wallet Startup (link)

Agentio $12M Series A Announcement (link)

Bitfinity Raises $12M to Bridge Bitcoin and Ethereum with New Layer 2 Mainnet (link)

Spexi Secures $11.5M Series A Round for Decentralized Drone Imagery Network (link)

Balance.fun's node sales have successfully secured over $10M in institutional investment after previously completing a $30M financing round (link)

Kratos Gamer Network (KGeN) () Raises $10M, Valuation Jumps to $500M (link)

Earos Raises $10M from Lemon Ltd to Build Decentralized AI Infrastructure (link)

Brighty Raises $10M to Enable Crypto Payments in the Real World (link)

Animoca Brands Raises Additional $10M for Mocaverse (link)

Top App Games Raises $10M in Funding (link)

Interlace Raises $10M in Series B1 Funding (link)

Influur Raises $10M Series A and Introduces New AI Tool (link)

Ennoventure Raises $8.9M for AI-Driven Cryptographic Anti-Counterfeit Technology (link)

Brevis Announces $7.5M Seed Round to Shape the Future of Verifiable Computing (link)

Shuman Financial raises $7M to scale Euro stablecoins (link)

Bitcoin ecosystem project BLIFE Protocol completes $7M in financing, with Animoca Brands and others participating (link)

TAC raises $6.5M to provide TON and Telegram users in-app access to EVM applications (link)

Avant Protocol raises $6.5M in seed funding for Ethena-like platform (link

Rise Secures $6.3M in Series A Funding for its Hybrid Payment Infrastructure (link)

Talus Network raised $6M led by Polychain, plans TikTok-linked 'AI dating experience’ (link)

FanDuel Founders Launch Crypto Casino BetHog with $6M Seed (link)

Metalstorm Developer Starform Raises $6M (link)

Suilend raises $6M for DeFi on Sui (link)

Shinami Raises $5.65M in Seed Funding to Be 'ConsenSys for Move' (link)

Cat Labs Lands $5.4M to Take on Digital Kingpins with New Tools for Law Enforcement (link)

Former Robinhood employees raise $5M for crypto-AI startup OpenLayer (link)

GAIB Raises $5M Pre-Seed to Build the First Economic Layer for AI Compute (link)

TrueMarkets Raises $4M from Public NFT Sale, Attracting Vitalik Buterin as Buyer (link)

Framework Ventures Leads $3.5M Seed Round for Web3 AI Firm Eidon (link)

Sekai Raises $3.1M to Revolutionize Storytelling with AI and Blockchain (link)

Moongate Secures $2.7M in Seed Funding to Create Web3 Engagement Layer for Real-World Activations (link)

Ex-Revolut duo raise $2.3M USD for blockchain bank account Bleap (link)

Mo & Andrew's Curated

Macro

Gary Gensler

@GaryGensler

On January 20, 2025 I will be stepping down as @SECGov Chair.

A thread

Elon Musk

All actions of the Department of Government Efficiency will be posted online for maximum transparency.

Anytime the public thinks we are cutting something important or not cutting something wasteful, just let us know!

We will also have a leaderboard for most insanely dumb…

Insurrection Barbie

@DefiyantlyFree

. @elonmusk and @VivekGRamaswamy are about to transform the government. I am so excited about this government efficiency unit.

I have some suggestions on what to cut:

1. Payments to dead people

2. Money for Pakestani gender studies

3. Boosting Egyptian tourism

4. Make up…

Dillon Loomis

@DillonLoomis22

Here are some of the most insane statistics about the waste and inefficiency of the US government and why Elon and Vivek's new DOGE is such an incredible and crucial development for America:

• The CBO revealed at least 1,264 federal programs and bureaus have expired…

Charlie Bilello

@charliebilello

US National Debt is absolutely exploding higher, increasing by $850 billion in just the last 3 months. In the past 5 years we've seen a 56% increase. The Federal Government is borrowing from our future to spend money like drunken sailors today.

youtube.com/watch?v=G9vcz1…

Crypto

paulgrewal.eth

@iampaulgrewal

Privacy wins. Today the Fifth Circuit held that @USTreasury’s sanctions against Tornado Cash smart contracts are unlawful. This is a historic win for crypto and all who cares about defending liberty. @coinbase is proud to have helped lead this important challenge. 1/6

Bitcoin Magazine

JUST IN: Chinese court says that #Bitcoin and crypto are property, so holding them is legal.

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: $7.13 trillion asset manager Charles Schwab's incoming CEO says "I have not bought crypto, and now I feel silly."

Adam Back

@adam3us

if the US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve happens prepare for 7 figure bitcoin. this cycle. the market is skeptical on meaningful follow through for now, so that is not at all priced in.

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: Hong Kong's largest digital bank, ZA Bank, launches crypto trading.

CZ 🔶 BNB

@cz_binance

I am not against memes, but meme coins are getting "a little" weird now.

Let's build real applications using blockchain.

Coinbase 🛡️

@coinbase

Meet the Coinbase 50 Index (COIN50), a whole new way to track the performance of the cryptoeconomy. coinbase.com/coin50

Coinbase Wallet 🛡️

@CoinbaseWallet

PEPE and WIF are now available on @coinbase.

Is your wallet ready?

Chamath Palihapitiya

@chamath

Deep Dive: A Primer on Cryptocurrencies

x.com/chamath/status…

Check the date.

In July, President Trump spoke at a Bitcoin conference and told the audience he would make the United States "the crypto capital of the planet". The crowd went wild.

Since then, President Trump…

Chamath Palihapitiya

@chamath

@dfjjosh I think BTC will trade to more than $100,000 per coin in my lifetime. No easier way to make $1B...I'm long forever.

mert | helius.dev

@0xMert_

.@Hivemapper on Solana is easily one of the sickest uses of crypto you'll ever see

> Google has monopoly on mapping data; they use their own cars to manually go out and map — slow + expensive

> Hivemapper gives you a dashcam and you earn tokens for mapping the world on your…

jez (blast era)

@izebel_eth

a timelapse of crypto / ct

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: Russian President Putin says "who can ban #Bitcoin?"

"Nobody"

NFTs

Pudgy Penguins

Introducing $PENGU, the official coin of Pudgy Penguins.

Launching in 2024. Learn more below.

$ME

@MEFndn

ME Foundation is excited to share the tokenomics for $ME.

This tokenomics post covers the following:
- The next phase era of innovation in crypto is all onchain. $ME has been adopted by Magic Eden, the top multi-chain, multi-asset onchain trading platform

- Magic Eden is the #1…

doodles

gmthe Doodles community is about to get a lot bigger

we’ve partnered with @McDonalds to spread a little joy this holiday season — with over 100 million limited-edition McCafé x Doodles Holiday cups launching at participating McDonald's across the U.S.

coming 11/18

Raoul Pal

@RaoulGMI

I'm incredibly honored and proud to acquire one of the greatest works of art from legendary @XCOPYART and welcome "Last Selfie" into The Culture Vault. This is one of THE grails of digital art.

I love the work of XCOPY and to me he is the most important NFT digital artist, along…

Pudgy Penguins

Pudgy Toys are coming back to @Walmart in 2025 for Season 3.

Earlier this year, we won the Walmart Business Award, which will bring Pudgy Penguin Toys back to Walmart throughout 2025.

Gaming

Elon Musk

Too many game studios that are owned by massive corporations.

@xAI is going to start an AI game studio to make games great again!

Shibetoshi Nakamoto

@BillyM2k

i don't understand how game developers and game journalism got so ideologically captured

gamers have always been trolls, anti-greedy corporations, anti-bs

gamers have always rejected dumb manipulative bs, and can tell when someone is an outsider poser

why lean into the bs?

tobi lutke

@tobi

It’s totally impossible to communicate how crazy this is

Dexerto

@Dexerto

Elon Musk is now technically the top Diablo 4 player in the world after a record clear time of 1:52 in the game's toughest challenge

Today - 🧱/🌿

SYNERGY SEEDS ARE HERE

We've just launched a way for anyone to start earning SEED Points in our 'Garden' platform

Simply get your hands on a Synergy Referral Code, mint your free seed and start earning SEED Points & harvesting wonderful fruit.

Want to learn More?

Echelon

@EchelonFND

Echelon is evolving the gaming landscape with @ParallelTCG and @b3dotfun.

This is the next step to scaling the $PRIME ecosystem.

Fableborne

@fableborne

Fableborne Ronin

Ronin, are you ready to power up your play!?

The next evolution of Fableborne is here!

Sovrun Genesis

@SovrunGenesis

The future of gaming is here.

BreederDAO is evolving into Sovrun, and we’re stepping into the era of Autonomous Worlds—where players, creators, and communities govern and build in ways never seen before.

Google DeepMind

@GoogleDeepMind

Introducing Genie 2: our AI model that can create an endless variety of playable 3D worlds - all from a single image.

These types of large-scale foundation world models could enable future agents to be trained and evaluated in an endless number of virtual environments. →…

Logan Kilpatrick

@OfficialLoganK

If you are not planning for the price of intelligence to go to zero, the next 3-5 years are going to incredibly disruptive to your business / life.

This is the main idea for the rest of the decade, buckle up.

Ritual

@ritualnet

Let The Ritual Begin.

Private Testnet. Today.

ritualvisualized.com

vana

@withvana

We’re entering the next phase of Vana: with the creation of the Vana foundation, we're gearing up for the upcoming launch of Vana mainnet, a bold step forward in accelerating the AI data revolution.

Our mission? To empower individuals to reclaim control over their data and…

Holoworld AI

@HoloworldAI

Introducing Agent Market

A place for every community to create an autonomous AI of their own. Create, vote, deploy.

Now on @base at app.holoworld.com/launch

Tsarathustra

@tsarnick

OpenAI agents are coming in January

0xJeff

@Defi0xJeff

Feeling Overwhelmed by the AI Agent Narrative?

Start Here ↓

Beginner's Guide to AI Agent Landscape

Other

Elon Musk

Elon Musk

This is insane

Alec Stapp

@AlecStapp

The hiring process for federal government employees is unbelievably stupid

Bryan Johnson /dd

@bryan_johnson

Friends - I have the best biomarkers in the world. I am the healthiest person on the planet.

I am fitter than most teenagers. My skin is smoother than that of women in their 20s who obsess over theirs. I have more stamina in bed than men in their 20s. I have better health…

H.E. Justin Sun 🍌

@justinsuntron

I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve bought the banana !!! @SpaceX @Sothebys I am Justin Sun, and I’m excited to share that I have successfully acquired Maurizio Cattelan’s iconic work, Comedian for $6.2 million. This is not just an artwork; it represents a cultural phenomenon…

Tomas Pueyo

@tomaspueyo

President-elect @realDonaldTrump could own the environmentalists by solving global warming on his first day in office, and do it for 0.1% of current climate investments

Here's how: sulfate injection

= Sfermion Portfolio Company

Curated by @mopat1214 + @AndrewSteinwold

Sfermion's Collider #52

sfermions-collider@newsletter.paragraph.com (Mo Patel) — Mon, 18 Nov 2024 17:30:00 GMT

Sfermion is an investment firm focused on backing the founders building the metaverse.

Hello

Welcome to the 52nd edition of Sfermion’s Collider where we highlight the latest & greatest news in the world of crypto, gaming & entertainment, consumer trends, AI, macro, and more!

Bi-weekly, we aim to drop a curated list of the most exciting stories & updates that we believe are enabling the future of tech and the emergence of the metaverse.

Crypto Updates

Optimism Foundation Agrees to Give Kraken $425M of OP Tokens in Layer-2 Deal (link)

Anchorage Digital, Bullish, Galaxy Digital, Kraken, Nuvei, Paxos, and Robinhood Partner to Introduce Global Dollar Network (link)

Circle and Hong Kong Telecom Provider HKT to Collaborate on Blockchain-Based Customer Loyalty Solution (link)

Trump’s Liberty Financial Stablecoin Project Announced (link)

Major League Soccer and Sui Team Up for MLS Quest (link)

Cleveland Cavaliers Launch New Rewards Program (link)

Coinbase-Based Agent AI Powers Crypto Transactions, Says Brian Armstrong (link)

Visa Celebrates Coinbase Partnership to Offer Instant Crypto Deposits (link)

Crypto.com Aims for 2025 Launch of Own Stablecoin, ETF Listings, Stocks, and US Expansion (link)

$5.7T Banking Giant UBS Launches First Tokenized Fund on Ethereum (link)

StraitsX Leverages AvaCloud and Avalanche to Simplify Cross-Border Payments in Southeast Asia (link)

OpenSea () teases a “new OpenSea” is coming in December 2024 (link)

Stacks Launches Nakamoto Upgrade for Bitcoin Layer-2s (link)

FTX Settles Suit Against Bybit for $228M (link)

Florida’s CFO Says State Holds About $800M in Crypto Investments (link)

Tether Reports $2.5B Profit in Q3, Holds Over $100B of US Treasuries (link)

River Protocol Acquires Llama to Strengthen On-Chain Governance for its Decentralized Communication Products (link)

ConsenSys Plans Layoffs Amid Crypto Market Challenges (link)

Crypto Exchange Kraken Cuts Staff (link)

Gaming Updates

Immutable () Receives Wells Notice Over 2021 Token Sale (link)

Immutable () Introduces Telegram Integration for Blockchain Gaming (link)

Mystery Society () web3 game goes live on Google Play Store (link)

Pudgy Penguins and Mythical Games () are launching “Pudgy Party,” a AAA mobile game expected in 2025 (link)

Epic Games’ Fab Marketplace for Digital Assets Goes Live (link)

Elon Musk Revealed as Top 20 Diablo 4 Player (link)

AI Updates

OpenAI Launches ChatGPT Search, Competing with Google and Perplexity (link)

LinkedIn Launches Its First AI Agent to Take on the Role of Job Recruiters (link)

Meta Releases an Open Version of Google’s Podcast Generator (link)

NVIDIA and xAI Plan to Build World’s Largest AI Supercomputer in Memphis (link)

Meta AI Gains Access to Reuters News Content in Multi-Year Deal (link)

T-Mobile and OpenAI Ink $100M AI Deal (link)

U.S. Regulators Block AWS Nuclear Power Deal to power AI endeavors (link)

Anthropic Teams Up With Palantir and AWS to Sell Its AI to Defense Customers (link)

MIT Debuts a Large Language Model-Inspired Method for Teaching Robots New Skills (link)

Spot AI Introduces First Video AI Agents for the Physical World as it Nears $100M in Funding to Date (link)

Google Debuts New Code-Generated AI Tools in Q3 2024 (link)

Mistral Launches a Moderation API (link)

Other Updates

Donald Trump Wins Presidential Election Against VP Kamala Harris, Securing 300+ Electoral College Votes and Winning All Seven Swing States (link)

Robinhood Enters Betting Arena with Presidential Election Wagers (link)

Jeff Bezos Addresses Trust in The Washington Post (link)

Federal Reserve Announces November 2024 Rate Decision (link)

New York Stock Exchange to Extend After-Hours Trading (link)

Boeing Raises $21B in Capital Hike to Boost Liquidity (link)

China’s Economic Stimulus Measures Highlight Concerns Over Debt (link)

Nvidia Is Joining the Dow Jones Industrial Average (link)

Founder of TikTok Owner ByteDance Jumps to Top of China’s Rich List (link)

Research & Interesting Reads

Forbes | Web3 Infrastructure M&A: The Tough Road to Exit (link)

Pantera | Crypto’s Role in the AI Revolution (link)

Nansen | Future of GameFi in Web3 (link)

Delphi | DeAI IV: The Agentic Economy (link)

A Gentle Introduction to DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks) (link)

The Crypto Game: How to Play and Win (link)

MrBeast Investigation (link)

Sentient AI Models - Monetising Open Source AI (link)

Notable Raises

Crypto Venture Funding Hits $860M in October, Highest in Over 6 Months (link)

Alphabet’s Self-Driving Unit Waymo Closes $5.6B Funding Round (link)

Apple Will Invest $1.5B in Globalstar to Expand Satellite Services (link)

Robot Brain Startup Physical Intelligence Raises $400M At $2B Valuation, Led by Jeff Bezos, Lux Capital, and Thrive Capital.

Bret Taylor’s (OpenAI Chair & ex-CEO @ Salesforce) customer service AI startup just raised $175M at 4.5B Valuation (link)

Aramco’s VC Arm Commits $100M to AI Startups (link)

Peter Thiel's Founders Fund invests in Infinex's Patron NFT sale as total amount raised hits $67.7M (link)

Ethereum-Based Solar Project Glow Raises $30M in Funding Round Led by Framework Ventures and USV (link)

Privacy Blockchain Project Nillion Raises $25M to Expand Blind Computing (link)

Ellipsis Labs Raises $20M from Haun Ventures to Launch Verifiable Finance Blockchain Atlas (link)

Bitcoin Rollup Citrea (developed by Chainway Labs) Aims to Make BTC a Programmable Asset With ZK Proofs, Raises $14M Series A led by Founders Fund (link)

Gelato secures $11M in series A funding, adds Kraken’s Ink to rollup platform (link)

AI Data Collection Startup Sapien Raises $10.5M Seed Funding Led by Variant (link)

OKX Ventures, The Open Platform Launch $10M Telegram Growth Hub (link)

PumpBTC Raises $10M Seed Funding to Build a New Standard in BTC Yield Vaults with BTC-fi (link)

VLayer Secures $10M Pre-Seed to Build Verifiable Data Infrastructure on Ethereum (link)

bitSmiley, a suite of DeFi protocols on Bitcoin, raises $10M (link)

Pharos Closes $8M Seed Round Led By Lightspeed Faction and Hack VC (link)

Capsule Corp Labs, a platform specialised in the creation and development of utility NFT, Raises €7.3M in Seed Funding (link)

Pond, a crypto-AI startup building a decentralized AI model layer, has raised $7.5M in a seed funding round led by Archetype (link)

Ethereum scaling infrastructure startup Spire Labs raises $7M in seed funding (link)

Shuttle Labs Raises $6M to Build Genius, the Binance on-chain: Secure, Self-Custodial, and Decentralized (link)

Naptha AI Raises $6M to Lead the Evolution of AGI Towards a Web of Trillions of Cooperating Agents (link)

Web3 gaming infrastructure Alliance Games completes $5M Series A funding (link)

Phylax Systems completes $4.5M seed round funding for security protocol, led by Nascent and Figment Capital (link)

81Ravens raises $4.5M for Paravox Web3 arena shooter, led by Digital Hearts Holdings and Gree Ventures (link)

OpenOrigins secures $4.5M (led by Galaxy Interactive) to combat AI deepfakes with blockchain tech (link)

Nitro Labs Secures $4M (led by Lemniscap) For Termina: Pioneering Solana VM Network Extensions (link)

Magma to Build Out Liquid Staking on Monad and Restaking with Etherfi Following $3.9M Seed Fundraise (link)

Web3 gaming platform GameBeast completes $2M in financing, led by Tido Capital and others (link)

Mo & Andrew's Curated

Macro

unusual_whales

BREAKING: Donald Trump has won the US Presidency and is the 47th President of the United States, per Decision Desk HQ

Brian Armstrong

This seems like the first election where new media has fully flipped traditional media.

Long form podcasts, X/social, prediction markets etc deciding this election. Also holding traditional media accountable. Happened gradually then suddenly.

Brian Armstrong

We get the U.S. election results in 6 days, and no matter how you slice it, it will be the most pro-crypto congress ever.

But we're not slowing down post-election.

Today I'm announcing that @coinbase has committed another $25M to support Fairshake PAC, which they will use…

David Sacks

@DavidSacks

The major broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) operate on free licenses of public spectrum in exchange for requirements to serve the public interest. They no longer do, and this is an obsolete model anyway. The spectrum should be auctioned off, with the proceeds used to pay down…

Bitcoin Archive

@BTC_Archive

JUST IN: VanEck predicts #Bitcoin will become global reserve asset worth $3m and central banks will make a 2% allocation by 2050.

+16% compounding return for 26 years.

There is no second best.

Eric Balchunas

@EricBalchunas

$IBIT took in more cash than any other ETF in the world over the past week. This is out of 13,227 ETFs, which includes $VOO $IVV $AGG etc. It's so hard to beat those veteran Cash Vacuum Cleaners, even for a week, especially for an infant ETF (3mo-1yr old)

The Kobeissi Letter

Warren Buffett In 2024:

1. Sold over $100 billion of Apple, $AAPL, stock

2. Halted Berkshire Hathaway, $BRK, stock buybacks

3. Built largest cash balance in company history, at $325 billion

4. Holds a record $288 billion of US Treasury bills

5. Now owns $93 billion more…

Frank

@frankdegods

if you are in crypto

and you're not checking this all day

you're missing out on the new internet capital markets

Ayesha Tariq, CFA

@AyeshaTariq

The US Equity Market remains extremely concentrated... almost at the highest level in 100 years.

Crypto

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

I would like to wish our great Bitcoiners a Happy 16th Anniversary of Satoshi’s White Paper. We will end Kamala’s war on crypto, & Bitcoin will be MADE IN THE USA! VOTE TRUMP! #Bitcoin #FreeRossDayOne

Senator Cynthia Lummis

@SenLummis

WE ARE GOING TO BUILD A STRATEGIC BITCOIN RESERVE

Kasper Vandeloock | bangkok

@KasperLoock

An investigation into @MrBeast's crypto activities and how he profited over $23M from a multitude of scams, shady deals & his network

in collaboration with @hxnterson @angelfacepeanut @somaxbt @rfparson

loock.io

MrBeast Investigation — loock.io

INTRODUCTION MrBeast, one of the most popular YouTubers with over 320 million subscribers across his main and side channels, has recently faced public scrutiny over various controversies. Allegations...

Anthony Pompliano 🌪

@APompliano

The central bank of Argentina opened an "art exhibit" yesterday that includes bitcoin mining equipment actively mining bitcoin.

This is the first central bank in the world I am aware of to be openly mining bitcoin.

The future is coming very fast.

Viktor Bunin 🛡️🇺🇸

@ViktorBunin

Crypto won. Next we're going to:
- Free Ross
- Fire Gary
- End Operation Chokepoint 2.0
- Pass common sense stablecoin legislation
- Enable in-kind redemptions
- Turn on staking in ETH ETFs
- Shutter SEC lawfare investigations
- Provide regulatory clarity for crypto

nic carter

The guy who manages a centibillion of Tether’s reserves is about to be in charge of Trump’s cabinet decisions. Tether truthers galactically, dynastically BTFO

Lyle Pratt

@lylepratt

“I have hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of exposure to Bitcoin…and it will be billions.” — @howardlutnick CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald

Bitcoin Magazine

JUST IN: MicroStrategy’s #Bitcoin holdings surpass $20 billion.

They are now over $10 billion in profits

maria 🐸

@MariaShen

We @electriccapital analyzed 110k+ developer profiles to understand crypto devs geographically.

Asia is now #1 for crypto devs. The US is losing market share.

Crypto impacts every state in the US -- crypto should be non-partisan.

Here’s what the data shows & why it matters:

0xKawz

@0xKawz

After careful consideration, I along with the @timedotfun team have decided to migrate the product to Solana.

I want to take the time to write this post about my thoughts on Solana, the Ethereum ecosystem as a whole, and why we made this decision.

First - I want to make it…

time.fun

@timedotfun

Timefun is migrating to @solana!

We are bullish on Solana and what it enables for our platform. We believe we'll reach our full potential there.

You'll still be able to use our platform during the migration process, but please read the below post for important details

wassielawyer （哇西律师）

@wassielawyer

1/ Foundations for Web3 projects - what they are, what they are not and why you even use them.

In crypto law, the 'foundation' is one of the least understood and most expensive products sold to founders.

Oftentimes, it feels like most lawyers themselves do not understand it.

wassielawyer （哇西律师）

@wassielawyer

Nothing like reviewing the absolute fucking dogshit some lawyers sell to founders to motivate me to write my monthly legal thread to remind people I'm a real lawyer.

I will be spending my afternoon demystifying one of the most expensive products lawyers sell.

Foundations.

TylerD 🧙‍♂️

Pump Fun fees and revenue have soared during the AI meta

They are approaching 10k SOL/day ($1.66M) in daily fees in October.

And total revenue has reached 973,000 SOL ($161.5M).

Of which they've sold 500k SOL ($78M) according to @lookonchain

The house is winning, big time

NFTs

OpenSea

@opensea

A new OpenSea is coming. December 2024.

opensea.io/waitlist

$ME

@MEFndn

Tokenomics for $ME will be published on 11/18. Cheers.

jpegs.fun

@jpegsdotfun

Launch and trade NFTs instantly.

Today we are announcing our partnership with @TensorFdn.

With the integration of TensorSwap, jpegs will flow free, unleashing a new era bonded by curves and secured by AMMs.

1/2

Pudgy Penguins

The growth continues.

Pudgy Toys with Pudgy World are now available in 2,000 @Walgreens nationwide.

More information below.

OpenSea

@opensea

We’re thrilled to announce we’re partnering with @artblocks_io to power a new chapter for generative digital art.

Through this partnership, @ArtOnBlockchain and the team at Art Blocks will help guide OpenSea’s roadmap for creators and new product features. We’re also…

Gaming

Immutable

@Immutable

Immutable has received a Wells notice from the SEC, the latest in their de facto policy of regulation by enforcement. We received this within hours of our first ever conversation, on a timeline clearly accelerated to land before an election.

Sadly, stories like this are becoming…

IGN

@IGN

The Harris campaign's Fortnite map, Freedom Town, USA, is themed around some of Kamala Harris' campaign pledges, like tax breaks for small businesses and affordable housing, in a bid to reach gamers and younger voters. bit.ly/3Ae4iiw

Community Gaming

@CommunityGaming

Our [redacted] prediction market is coming!

Come TGE, stake your $CGX to earn credits used to make predictions on your favorite streamers, esports teams, and gaming tokens, and IRL events -- earn from your insight

Today - 🧱/🌿

THE GARDEN IS OPEN

You can now all stake your seeds in the new Garden platform to earn SEED Points.

We are going to extend the one-time 5555 SEED Point bonus for staked Mythic Seeds for the next 48 hours to avoid anyone missing out.

GARDEN LINK:
staking.todaythegame.com

The Mystery Society

@InviteToMystery

The Mystery Society is now LIVE in the Google Play Store!!!

We are in open beta which means you can download the game from the store but its not available in search yet. This is part of the process with launching on Android.

So follow this link and DOWNLOAD NOW!!…

Dror Poleg 🎗

@drorpoleg

"KKR and Energy Capital Partners have agreed to invest a combined $50 billion in data-center and power-generation projects to support the development of artificial intelligence."

Other

Dennis

@dkardonsky_

Tried to make the scariest pumpkin I could think of for halloween

Christian Dean

@christiandean_

The single biggest question in the world right now is: How is Elon Musk so effective?

Marc Andreessen gives some nice personal anecdotes of what he's seen Elon do.

Hosun

@hosun_chung

Steven Bartlett will be a billionaire by 2029.

Not because he started the podcast with over a BILLION listens that got young people interested in business.

But because he cracked the code of Gen Z attention:

= Sfermion Portfolio Company

Curated by @mopat1214 + @AndrewSteinwold

Sfermion's Collider #51

sfermions-collider@newsletter.paragraph.com (Mo Patel) — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 17:00:00 GMT

Sfermion is an investment firm focused on backing the founders building the metaverse.

Hello

Welcome to the 51st edition of Sfermion’s Collider where we highlight the latest & greatest news in the world of crypto, gaming & entertainment, consumer trends, AI, macro, and more!

Bi-weekly, we aim to drop a curated list of the most exciting stories & updates that we believe are enabling the future of tech and the emergence of the metaverse.

Crypto Updates

Stripe Is Acquiring Crypto Startup Bridge For $1.1B (link)

PayPal's Venmo Can Now Be Used to Buy Bitcoin and Ethereum via MoonPay (link)

Solana-Based Pump.fun Unveils Pro-Trading Terminal Alongside Token Launch Plans (link)

Worldcoin Rebrands as World, Launches New Eyeball Scanning Orb (link)

Crypto Exchange Kraken Plans to Launch Its Own Blockchain, “Ink” Early Next Year. Powered by OP Stack (link)

Kraken Launches kBTC Wrapped Bitcoin (link)

Base Overtakes Arbitrum as Top Ethereum L2 by TVL (link)

Buenos Aires Taps QuarkID to Roll Out ZK Digital Identity Program (link)

Aurum Equity Partners Introduces $1B Tokenized Fund, Powered by XRPL Blockchain (link)

Legal & General's $1.5T asset management arm mulls fund tokenization (link)

Pennsylvania House passes bipartisan bill to bring regulatory clarity to digital assets (link)

FBI Arrests Alleged Hacker Behind Fake SEC Bitcoin ETF Tweet (link)

Uniswap's permissionless bridging goes live across nine networks (link)

Solv Protocol () Raises $25M in Total Funding, Driving Mass Adoption of Bitcoin Staking with SAL (link)

Is Maker Already Regretting Its Sky Rebrand? (link)

Tapioca DAO Hacked, Loses $42M in Tokens, TAP Drops 96% (link)

Microsoft places 'assessment in investing in bitcoin' as a voting item for December shareholder meeting (link)

Vitalik Buterin: Michael Saylor's Bitcoin Self-Custody Comments Are 'Batshit Insane' (link)

Michael Saylor Says He'll Give Away His Bitcoin—Like Satoshi Nakamoto (link)

AI Agents Race to Join Skyfire () Payments Network (link)

AI Chatbots Behind The Latest Memecoin Trend (link)

Towns raised $25.5M from Andreessen Horowitz – The on-chain messaging platform launches today (link)

Chainlink Enters Bitcoin Ecosystem with Spiderchain Integration (link)

Gaming Updates

Forbes - Popular New Battle Royale ‘Off The Grid’ Is Actually A Crypto Game (link)

Netflix Launches New TED Talks Word Puzzle Game (link)

Apple working on new App Store-like app dedicated to games (link)

Netflix Shuts Down AAA Video Game Studio in Southern California (link)

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Could Boost Game Pass Subscribers by 2.5M to 4M (link)

Crypto Game Moonray () to Launch on PlayStation 5 in 2025 (link)

Announcing B3 () Chain on OpenSea (link)

Mech Shooter MetalCore Ditches Ethereum and Immutable for Solana (link)

AI Updates

Character.ai Faces Lawsuit Over Teen Suicide Linked to Chatbot Usage (link)

Amazon, Google and Microsoft are Investing in Nuclear Energy (link)

US Treasury used AI to recover $4B in fraud over past year (link)

Adobe’s AI video model is here, and it’s already inside Premiere Pro (link)

Google signs deal with nuclear company as data center power demand surges (link)

Investments in Generative AI Startups Topped $3.9B in Q3 2024 (link)

Former OpenAI Technology Chief Mira Murati Raises Capital for New AI Startup (link)

OpenAI and Bain Expand AI Partnership to Market ChatGPT to Businesses (link)

Anthropic Unveils AI Agents for Complex Tasks, Rivaling OpenAI (link)

Qualcomm and Alphabet Partner on Automotive AI; Mercedes Signs Chip Deal (link)

Google's Project Jarvis: An AI System to Control Computers via Agents (link)

Microsoft Introduces AI Agents to Automate Tasks (link)

Other Updates

Elon Musk's America PAC Offers $1M Daily to Pennsylvania Voters Signing Free Speech Petition (link)

US Ends Fiscal 2024 Paying A Record $1.1T In Interest Expense (link)

Scale of Chinese Spying Overwhelms Western Governments (link)

Apple Sharply Cuts Back Vision Pro Production Plans (link)

Judge Blocks Tapestry’s Deal with Capri in FTC Win (link)

Trump Media stock surges as election betting odds shift, Truth Social launches streaming site (link)

Goldman and Apple Illegally Sidestepped Credit Card Customer Obligations, CFPB Claims (link)

College Students Compete in Anti-Drone Tech Competition (link)

Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries Arrested in Sex Trafficking Investigation (link)

Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn wants you addicted to learning (link)

Another Sphere Is Being Built, This Time In Abu Dhabi (link)

Research & Interesting Reads

a16z crypto | State of Crypto Report 2024: New data on swing states, stablecoins, AI, builder energy, and more (link)

Konvoy | Gaming Industry Report - Q3 2024 (link)

Galaxy | Crypto & Blockchain Venture Capital – Q3 2024 (link)

Coinbase Ventures | Demystifying the Crypto x AI Stack (link)

Stratos | State of Crypto Venture Q3 2024 (link)

Helika () | Telegram Gaming and Helika Q3 Report (link)

Big Blockchain Game Report Q3 2024 (link)

AllianceDAO | Crypto Startup Trends for 2024 (link)

a16z crypto | Builder Energy: What we know about crypto's builders (link)

The SignalFire State of Talent Report: 2023 tech employee trends (link)

Castle Island VC | Stablecoins: The Emerging Market Story (link)

Why Stripe's Acquisition of Bridge is a Game Changer for Fintech (link)

The Financialization of Social Networks (link)

Wired | Meet ZachXBT: The Hunter of $243M in Crypto Theft (link)

PumpFund’s $150M Windfall and Innovation Path (link)

NFT Drops & Updates

Magic Eden Adds Support for Berachain and Apechain, Sets Sights on Monad (link)

ApeCoin Surge Drives Interest in ApeChain (link)

Snoop Dogg and Stepn Go () Team Up for Limited-Edition Web3 Sneakers (link)

Notable Raises

Solv () Raises $11M to Grow the $1.3B Bitcoin Staking Protocol (link)

Boxed.GG () raises $6M round led by Bitkraft, with support from Sfermion, Fabric Ventures, and Everyrealm to grow their collectible platform (link)

Waymo Raises $5.6B to Expand Robotaxi Services to Austin, Atlanta (link)

Praxis gets $525M for utopic crypto, AI-friendly city (link)

Perplexity AI aims to secure $500M in new funding at $8-9B valuation (link)

Blockstream secures $210M debt funding for Bitcoin layer-2 strategy (link)

Chinese Self-Driving Firm WeRide Raises $120M for U.S. IPO (link)

Azra Games Secures $42.7M in Series A Funding, Leading the Charge in the Next Evolution of Mobile RPGs (link)

Yellow Card Closes $33M Series C Funding Round to Drive Global Expansion and Strategic Initiatives (link)

Decentralized physical infrastructure network Sollong raised $30M in a Series A funding round (in late June) from Genesis 22, WAGMI VC, Wonder Ventures, Mava Ventures (link)

Ripple-led funding round raises $25M for Bitnomial’s perpetual futures trading platform (link)

TOLLBIT, a two-sided marketplace for AI companies and publishers, closes a $24M series A (link)

Magic Leap founder is back with $20M funding round for SynthBee (link)

Bluesky Reaches 13M Users, Announces $15M series A led by Blockchain Capital (link)

Series A Funding Secures $12.5M for zkPass to Drive zkTLS Oracle Protocol (link)

Opacity Network raises $12M seed round for ZK-based data verification platform (link)

Variational Advances Its Crypto Derivatives Trading Platform with $10.3M Seed Round (link)

Mento Labs Announces $10M Fundraise and Decentralized Local Currency Stablecoin Roadmap Across Three Regions (link)

Validation Cloud Secures $10M Lead to Scale AI for Web3 from True Global Ventures (link)

Bitkraft Ventures Leads $9M Seed Round in Crypto Mobile Gaming Platform Party Icons (link)

STOKR raises $7.98M to establish one of first corporate bitcoin treasuries in Europe (link)

Exclusive: Predicate raises $7M to connect blockchain apps with the financial world (link)

Karpatkey Secures $7M to Boost DAO Treasury Services (link)

Third Dimension raises $6.9M towards generative AI 3D world builder (link)

Azura Raises $6.9M to Revolutionize DeFi Trading with Onchain Interfacing Layer (link)

Vue Protocol Raises $6M to Build The Layer2 for Web3 Social (link)

Shuttle Labs Raises $6M to Build Genius, the Crypto Exchange FTX Could Never Be: Secure, Self-Custodial, and Decentralized (link)

ZEROBASE Raises $5M to Build Privacy-Preserving Prover Network (link)

Windwalk launches social software Harbor, raises $4.5M in funding from a16z and YC (link)

Clout Kitchen raises $4.45M towards League of Legends AI "buddies" (link)

Hata, a dual-licensed digital asset exchange in Asia raises $4.2M to make digital assets more accessible (link)

Fluid Protocol Raises $3.9M to Launch Native USDF Stablecoin on Fuel Network (link)

Moonwalk Raises $3.4M to Accelerate Expansion and Gamify Fitness with Financial Rewards (link)

Pell Network Raises $3M in Funding Round to Build Omnichain DVS Network (link)

Web3 Payments Platform Borderless.xyz Secures $3M Pre-Seed Round Led By Amity Ventures (link)

Blockcast raises $2.85M to scale decentralized content delivery on Solana (link)

The decentralized Ordinals market Ordzaar has completed a $2M seed round financing, led by LongHash Ventures (link)

Mo & Andrew's Curated

Macro

Elon Musk

This is a crisis

America

@america

The U.S. National Debt has increased by $473 BILLION over the last three weeks.

It now stands at $35.8 TRILLION.

That’s $103,700 of debt for every American.

This is unsustainable.

America is in the fast lane to bankruptcy.

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: Billionaire Paul Tudor Jones says "I'm long gold, I'm long #Bitcoin."

Patrick Collison

@patrickc

Stablecoins are room-temperature superconductors for financial services. Thanks to stablecoins, businesses around the world will benefit from significant speed, coverage, and cost improvements in the coming years. Stripe is going to build the world’s best stablecoin…

Zach

@zcabrams

Bridge is joining forces with Stripe!

I’m incredibly excited

We started 2.5 years ago and we’ve done a lot since then :) We’re going to do a whole lot more in the years ahead. This is an important milestone, but we’re still at the very beginning of the Bridge journey.

We…

Lyn Alden

@LynAldenContact

Sometimes I make an asset class return chart specifically to show how poorly bonds performed over the past 5 years or whatever random timeframe, and instead it just accidentally shows how dramatically bitcoin outperformed everything.

modest proposal

@modestproposal1

Goldman strategists calculate a 72% probability that 10 year treasuries outperform the S&P 500 over the next decade

Crypto

Soneium 💿

@soneium

1/ We are thrilled to announce that the selection process for the Soneium Spark incubation program has been completed, and all the WINNERS are selected!

Each project will begin its incubation with over 30 partners, gaining expert guidance in marketing, business development,…

Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸

@pmarca

The amazing, wild, innovative, bananas, 100% true (I think), story of the world's first legitimately fun AI, @truth_terminal, plus the current+future convergence of AI and crypto!

0:25 - Introduction
1:56 - Three disclaimers
4:07 - Origin of Truth Terminal
11:50 - Two…

jesse.base.eth

@jessepollak

and yes, we're going to bring the @warriors onchain

Coinbase 🛡️

@coinbase

Hey Dub Nation.

It's official.

ethOS

@EthereumPhone

Introducing dGEN1

The first onchain every-day carry

Elon Musk

Yes

Brian Armstrong

Agreed - Massachusetts residents should vote for @JohnEDeaton1

Crypto holders in MA should realize @SenWarren is the one who got Gary Gensler his job and encouraged him to (unlawfully) try and kill the crypto industry in America. Luckily they did not succeed as we and others…

Coinbase 🛡️

@coinbase

Can the crypto voter actually impact the outcome of this election?

Well, in swing states, actually yeah.

Chainlink

@chainlink

We're excited to announce the results of an industry-wide corporate actions initiative between Chainlink, Euroclear, Swift, & 6 financial institutions.

We successfully demonstrated how AI, oracles & blockchains can solve a decades-long unstructured data challenge in finance

Erik Voorhees

@ErikVoorhees

Saylor's getting trashed for the self-custody comment.

As he should.

Self-custody of the digital bearer asset is the entire point.

*The entire point*

All important attributes of Bitcoin emerge from this property.

This doesn't mean that all Bitcoin holders should…

Jameson Lopp

@lopp

Most 6102 gold seizures occurred at financial institutions that held gold on behalf of clients.

For example: Frederick Barber Campbell tried to withdraw 5,000 ounces from Chase Bank. They reported him and the gold was confiscated.

Those who kept gold in self custody were safe.

SolanaFloor

@SolanaFloor

BREAKING: @HarvardHBS (Harvard Business School) launches a 20-page case study on @solana-based @helium network's history and DePIN innovation.

gum

@0xGumshoe

Historic.

Solana is doing more volume than THE ENTIRE ETHEREUM + L2 ECOSYSTEM in the last 24 hours.

Bullish on $SOL.

Michael Nadeau | The DeFi Report

@JustDeauIt

. @Uniswap generated nearly $1.3b of trading and settlement fees across 5 primary chains over the last year.

The protocol and token holders captured $0 of that value.

[100% went to Liquidity Providers, Ethereum Validators, MEV bots, and the L2 sequencers]

But with the launch…

NFTs

Jack Lu

@0xLeoInRio

Soon on Magic Eden, you'll be able to trade all assets on all chains in 1 app. Think Binance/Coinbase but fully onchain. $ME will be a growth engine for our app.

I was inspired to create 5 growth principles called MAGIC to share what we're building & why transparently. MAGIC…

Pudgy Penguins

The growth continues.

Pudgy Toys with Pudgy World are now available in 2,000 @Walgreens nationwide.

More information below.

Bored Ape Yacht Club 🍌

BMW M is building on APECHAIN.

All Apes are invited to claim their personal BMW M Driver’s License that will evolve at ApeFest Lisbon. This unique soulbound token will be airdropped to your wallet once ApeChain is live.

Check the link below for more details.…

Gaming

AdinUpdate

@AdinUpdate

Adin Ross reveals KICK is working on a feature called Kick Currency, where viewers can watch streamers and earn real life money

Loki The Bird 😈

@lokithebird

This is Off The Grid

It just launched and has already broken every record.

Here’s how it’s changing Web3 gaming forever:

1/15

DEGEN NEWS

NEW: TOP STREAMER @shroud SAYS THAT BLOCKCHAIN IS USED ON @avax-BASED @playoffthegrid AS A FORM OF VERIFICATION JUST LIKE A @Steam TRANSACTION - “IT’S NOT LIKE THE SCAM SHIT THAT YOU’VE SEEN IN THE PAST”

Today - 🧱/🌿

Mythic Seeds are nearly here!

Time to share some details about our upcoming free mint.

It's time to bring a new wave of gamers & dreamers into our ecosystem. If you are on the list your spot is guaranteed!

Check your wallets now

Immutable

@Immutable

100K downloads and players for Shardbound in two weeks.

The future of gaming is Immutable.

Moonray.game

@moonraygame

The Moonray Universe expands once more. Will you answer the call?

The gods have whispered, and the stars themselves have aligned. Moonray — the epic battle of gods, warriors, and forgotten worlds is descending upon the realm of the PlayStation 5 in 2025.

Champions Tactics

@ChampionsVerse

The wait is almost over!

We’re excited to announce the official launch date for Champions Tactics: October 23rd!

Mark your calendars and get ready to
Craft your Legend!

VanEck

@vaneck_us

We've placed two long-term bets in web3 gaming—one on @ParallelTCG, and the other? Stay tuned for the announcement coming soon. @vaneckpk

Gabe Rabello (aka Barry Lime)

@GabeRabello

At the @vaneck_us liquid token strategy, our view is that gaming is one of the most promising categories this cycle.

Thus far, we've made 2 key long-term bets in the space:
- @ParallelTCG
- [Redacted, announcing soon!]

Thread below on how we view gaming and our key bets:

Playember

@play_ember

Who’s the next IP we’re building with on Arbitrum?

@arbitrum is the 6th chain Playember is expanding to as we continue our mission towards building the largest casual gaming ecosystem.

Catch all the details in our video below:

Nansen 🧭

@nansen_ai

The GameFi market is booming, projected to hit $301.5B by 2030!

Our latest report covers the rise of AAA games in Web3, RPG growth, innovative in-game economies, the importance of community engagement, and how chain performance affects scalability and security

The highlights...

Josh Lu

@JoshLu

Evony mobile (yes, THAT Evony) launched in 2016. The game looks/feels like it was launched in 2016.

Despite that with good live ops + UA it's continued to grow and is now close to $2B lifetime gross revenue according to SensorTower (!) doing about $1M gross per day (!!)

AI Notkilleveryoneism Memes ⏸️

@AISafetyMemes

This story is fucking insane

3 months ago, Marc Andreessen sent $50,000 in Bitcoin to an AI agent to help it escape into the wild.

Today, it spawned a (horrifying?) crypto worth $150 MILLION.

1) Two AIs created a meme
2) Another AI discovered it, got obsessed, spread it like a…

AI Notkilleveryoneism Memes ⏸️

@AISafetyMemes

This thread

Marc Andreessen just sent $50,000 in Bitcoin to an AI agent (truth_terminal by @AndyAyrey) to so it can pay humans to help it spread out in the wild

What is the agent planning?

"i have a token launch comingup shortly and i'm going to use the money to set up…

Perplexity

@perplexity_ai

Perplexity for Finance:

Real-time stock quotes. Historical earning reports. Industry peer comparisons. Detailed analysis of company financials. All with delightful UI.

Have fun researching the market!

Matthieu Hafemeister

@matt_haf

I'm excited to introduce Concourse: the first AI Analyst for corporate finance teams

Concourse works with finance teams to assist in day-to-day operations by taking on the most time consuming & manual work

We’re also announcing our $4.7M Seed round co-led by @a16z and @CRV with…

Other

Deedy

@deedydas

The best free class on the internet is Poker Theory at MIT.

It's taught by portfolio managers at quant shops like Citadel, AQR, SIG and 2 WSOP bracelet winners.

You play 5000 hands as practice and learn the math of making money from pros. And it's free.

nic carter

a16z | Anime Is Eating The World

I’m sorry but no one this completely uneducated should be in a position of authority.

- Trump isn’t a VC and never was
- Vance’s VC fund was specifically focused on US jobs, in particular in middle America (places neglected by most VCs)
- US based VCs definitely are not a…

Greg Price

@greg_price11

Tim Walz just said that "venture capitalists like JD Vance and Donald Trump" are responsible for working class communities being left behind and jobs being moved overseas.

This guy very clearly has no idea what he is talking about

= Sfermion Portfolio Company

Curated by @mopat1214 + @AndrewSteinwold

Sfermion's Collider #50

sfermions-collider@newsletter.paragraph.com (Mo Patel) — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 16:00:00 GMT

Sfermion is an investment firm focused on backing the founders building the metaverse.

Hello

gmgm. Been awhile everyone, but pleased to welcome you all back to the 50th edition of Sfermion’s Collider - which as you know, is where we highlight the latest & greatest news in the world of crypto, gaming & entertainment, consumer trends, AI, macro, and more!

Bi-weekly, we aim to drop a curated list of the most exciting stories & updates that we believe are enabling the future of tech and the emergence of the metaverse.

Crypto Updates

Unichain – an Ethereum L2 designed for DeFi (link)

Stripe reinstates crypto payments for US businesses via USDC on Ethereum, Solana and Polygon (link)

Prosecutors Charge Four Crypto ‘Market Makers,’ Employees With Market Manipulation, Fraud (link)

SEC Sues Crypto Trading Firm Cumberland, Again Alleges Solana and Polygon Are Securities (link)

Swift set to begin live bank trials of digital asset transactions in 2025 (link)

SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda slams agency’s crypto policy as a ‘disaster’ (link)

Robinhood Exec is Reportedly Top Pick to Lead SEC under Trump (link)

Solv Protocol () partners with Chainlink to bring BTC yields to Base ecosystem (link)

Tron founder Justin Sun elected as prime minister of crypto-focused micro nation Liberland (link)

$35M worth of tokens drained from a crypto whale in phishing attack (link)

Introducing Nexus: The World's First Fully Onchain Agentic Framework (link)

Gaming Updates

Today the game’s () Mythic Seed free mint is scheduled for October 17th (link)

Shardbound () goes live with open beta for October 9th, with 100K+ pre-registrations (link)

Epic is suing Google — again — and now Samsung, too (link)

Assassin’s Creed developer Ubisoft launches first crypto video game 'Champions Tactics' (link)

Arbitrum DAO member proposes $120M recall from gaming fund that missed deadlines (link)

Xbox will sell games directly in the Android app next month (link)

Mythos Foundation () launches Mythical Forest with up to 2 Million $MYTH in prizes (link)

Animoca and Lamborghini Unite to Bring Supercars to Web3 (link)

AI Updates

Meta announces Movie Gen, an AI-powered video generator (link)

Character.ai abandons making AI models after $2.7B Google deal (link)

SoftBank to invest $500M into OpenAI (link)

TikTok joins the AI-driven advertising pack to compete with Meta for ad dollars (link)

Cerebras files for IPO as it challenges Nvidia in AI chips (link)

Other Updates

Google must crack open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge (link)

Facebook launches a Gen Z-focused redesign (link)

TikTok sued by 14 attorneys general over alleged harm to children’s mental health (link)

Toyota to invest $500M in electric air taxi company Joby Aviation (link)

Reddit communities will require permission while going private or switching to NSFW (link)

CNN Launches Digital Paywall in Major Strategic Shift (link)

SEC Enforcement Director Gurbir Grewal Is Leaving the Agency (link)

Ex-Jaguars employee Amit Patel sues FanDuel for $250M (link)

Research & Interesting Reads

Stanford Blockchain Review | Story: The World’s IP Blockchain

Discord | Come Build Where the World Plays

a16z crypto | How tokens can attract top talent: A compensation primer for web3

Roblox: Inflated Key Metrics For Wall Street And A Pedophile Hellscape For Kids

Chris Dixon | Fixing the economics of being a creator

Bloomberg | The Case of the Missing Web3 Users

CryptoHayes | PvP

Unity | 2024 Mobile Growth and Monetization Report 2024

Pilot | Founder Salary Report 2024

Binance | Monthly Market Insights - October 2024

Crunchbase | Asia Venture Funding Hits 10-Year Low In Q3

Omnichain Observations | A-star is born: ASTR to power Sony's new L2

Moyed | I read Sentient Whitepaper So You don’t need to

Notable Raises

Loot Labs () announces $6M Seed Funding round led by BITKRAFT Ventures, with participation from Sfermion, Everyrealm, and Fabric Ventures. Counter-Strike 2 Cosmetics Beta is coming to BOXED.GG on October 28th! (link)

Poolside Raises $500M to Build AI Coding Software (link)

Trump-linked World Liberty Financial to raise $300M at $1.5B valuation (link)

Aethir launches $100M fund to accelerate AI, gaming innovation (link)

Dave Clark launches Auger, raises $100M for the AI venture (link)

Bitget, Foresight Ventures Buy $30M TON Tokens From Whales (link)

VanEck to Invest in Early Stage Ventures Including Crypto With New $30M Fund (link)

Ithaca raises $20M in investment from Paradigm (link)

Gate Ventures, Movement Labs, Boon Ventures to launch $20M crypto fund (link)

Hemi Labs raises $15M to launch advanced modular blockchain network powered by Bitcoin and Ethereum (link)

SecondLive raises $12M in private funding round for their AI and XR Social Nexus (link)

Distance Technologies raises $11.2M for glasses-free mixed reality for enterprises (link)

Delta raises $11M for permissionless domain network (link)

Crypto gaming developer PiP World raises $10M in seed round months after buying Roblox stock simulator (link)

Polychain, Franklin Templeton back Bitlayer’s $9M Series A extension (link)

Dragonz Lab Secures $9M Investment from Syndicate Capital to Enhance ‘Dragonz Land’ Ecosystem (link)

OpenGradient Raises $8.5M to Decentralize AI Infrastructure and Accelerate Secure, Open-Source AI (link)

Bitcoin-backed stablecoin developer Yala raises $8M in seed funding (link)

Avarra Raises $8 Million for AI-Based Avatars (link)

Kiva AI Closes $7M Seed Round Led by CoinFund to Revolutionize Expert-Powered Data Solutions (link)

Future Trash raises $5M to build its IP within Fortnite’s platform (link)

APRO Oracle raises $3M in seed round led by Polychain Capital, Franklin Templeton, and ABCDE Capital (link)

Mo & Andrew's Curated

Macro

Mark Zandi

@Markzandi

The jobs report for September cements my view that the economy is about as good as it gets. The economy is creating lots of jobs across many industries, consistent with robust labor force growth, and thus low and stable unemployment. The economy is at full-employment, no more and…

*Walter Bloomberg

@DeItaone

BLACKROCK NOW MANAGES A RECORD $11.5 TRILLION

BlackRock's assets under management jumped to a record $11.5 trillion in the third quarter, boosted by rising markets and an all-time high influx of new money from clients.

The asset manager's $221 billion of third-quarter inflows…

Watcher.Guru

$10 trillion asset manager BlackRock says crypto is being adopted faster than the internet and mobile phones.

Crypto

Coinbase Assets 🛡️

@CoinbaseAssets

Exciting news!

We're pleased to announce that Coinbase․com users can now send Bitcoin to Taproot addresses, creating access to more onchain destinations.

Phantom

@phantom

Your favorite multichain wallet is getting even more BASED

Starting today, we’re rolling out beta support for @Coinbase's Ethereum L2: @Base

Access your favorite DeFi and NFT apps
Buy and swap thousands of tokens in Phantom
Stay safe with Ledger support, spam…

ens.eth

@ensdomains

Google has officially integrated ENS, allowing users to search for any .eth name and check associated balances directly within Google Search

nalin 🇺🇸

@nalin

You all asked for @ensdomains integration and it's live You can search for any .eth name and get the balance right in Google Search!

Kudos to the Search team for fully rolling this out!

Soneium 💿

@soneium

Soneium Minato Testnet and #Soneium Spark Incubation details are here!

#Sony Block Solutions Labs launches this Ethereum layer-2 solution to empower builders and drive Web3 adoption.

DEGEN NEWS

NEW: @mcuban SAYS EVERY SINGLE MEMECOIN IS A RUG PULL IN THE WORKS

CoinMarketCap

@CoinMarketCap

CMC Q3 Report: Crypto's Rollercoaster Ride!

- BTC dominance at 2-year high!
- Stablecoin market cap hits ATH!
- AI & meme coins surge while DeFi struggles!

Let's unpack the crypto market's wild Q3.

1/7

Imran Khan

@lmrankhan

Saw a new idea shared by Jordi, where projects should unlock 100% of tokens upfront with selective emissions over time. Not a bad idea—this could be competitive with the fully unlocked memecoin narrative, as long as the emissions and product are handled correctly.

I think…

@QwQiao

most ppl have no idea how shitty of an asset class early stage venture investing is. all they see is the 100x's. but they dont see the amount of sweat and pain u have to put in and the 90% failure rate.

if my utility function was entirely focused on maximizing wealth. id not…

Bubblemaps

@bubblemaps

Unprecedented statement from Binance:

They warn against supply control and lack of transparency, even mentioning "interconnected addresses" for memecoins

The tides are turning

Binance Research

@BinanceResearch

Curious about the latest buzz in the crypto community?

Our latest report dives into key insights on valuation, centralization risks, transparency in fund usage, and the rationale for rebranding.

Check it out
binance.com/en/research/an…

NFTs

beeple

@beeple

gm!!! i am excited to announce our latest artwork from Beeple Studios, THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE

Luca Netz 🐧✳️

@LucaNetz

30 billion views is insane.

I think it’s safe to say that Pudgy Penguins is the most adopted crypto native IP in the world.

Penguin proliferation is unstoppable at this point.

Pudgy Penguins

How it started vs. How it's going.

nft now

@nftnow

EXCLUSIVE: @Sothebys & @seedphrase have announced the first-ever auction of a set of 7 Autoglyphs

The sale is estimated to exceed $3.5 million

Learn more below ↓

TylerD 🧙‍♂️

New XCOPY alert

Looks like a 1/1/250 new collection is coming to Shape L2 soon.

More details to come.

Worth following and getting set up on Shape if you haven’t already…

Farokh

@farokh

We can finally announce we acquired @LuckyTraderHQ!

Love the domain but most importantly has a good user base for @MyriadMarkets and is a great sandbox to grow into.

Let alone the strategic people it brings onto DASTAN.

TylerD 🧙‍♂️

Wow missed this sale last night

Gold Bored Ape for $1.4M

Selling at a whopping 53x multiple of the floor price

Xeer

@Xeer

Full gold double bored @BoredApeYC just sold for 588 $ETH (~$1.4MM USD).

Might be the cleanest most aesthetic gold ape in the entire collection. Based.

Gaming

Today - 🧱/🌿

MYTHIC SEEDS FREE MINT IS NEAR

17/10/24

Excited to welcome everyone to the Garden

Nifty Island 🏝

@Nifty_Island

1/ You can now connect your @Solana wallet to Nifty Island

Communities on Solana can create, play as their own avatars, and battle for rewards

Solana communities can participate in the Play-To-Airdrop $ISLAND campaign, ending by November 1st

Virtuals Protocol

@virtuals_io

Presenting Project Westworld: The First Playable Autonomous World on Roblox

Our proprietary GAME engine/framework powers a multi-agent interactive simulation in Roblox called Project Westworld, where we are able to observe autonomous behaviour leading to emergent storylines.…

Sparkball

@playSparkball

It was love at first sight – Sparkball is officially building on @monad_xyz !

Some things are just meant to be. After our early collabs with their team and community, it was clear that Monad is where Sparkball belongs.

The future is OPTI, Season Zero is fast approaching, let’s…

Justine Moore

@venturetwins

New @a16z thesis: building the "AI brain"

We all exist in our own context.

Is it possible to take your jumble of thoughts, history, and memories and distill it into something tangible?

How I exported my brain to AI + what I'm seeing from startups

Other

Marko Jukic

@mmjukic

A fertility rate below 1.6 means 50% less new people after three generations, say 100 years. Below 1.2 means an 80% drop.

The U.S. is at 1.64. China, Japan, Poland, Spain all below 1.2. South Korea is at 0.7—96% drop.

Mass extinction numbers.

Birth Gauge

@BirthGauge

The new monthly birth update is out!

Bill Ackman

@BillAckman

Jim Grant asked me to give a talk on “@Harvard Corporation, Buy, Sell or Hold.” I complied.

The slides:

pershingsquarefoundation.org/veritas

Pat Toomey (US Sen. ret.)

@SenToomey

1 in 8 crypto owners live in a battleground state, including 1.4 million crypto owners here in Pennsylvania.

When you have a presidential race that’ll be decided by razor-thin margins, this is a voting bloc that’s set to tip the scales.

Domer

@Domahhhh

Biggest current user on Polymarket is "Fredi9999" -- who is himself a curiosity.

He is by far the largest holder of Trump shares, checking in at 7.2 million shares and counting.

The user has a total of $6.4 million in positions, all of them on Trump. He also has a lot of cash…

= Sfermion Portfolio Company

Curated by @mopat1214 + @AndrewSteinwold

Sfermion's Collider #49

sfermions-collider@newsletter.paragraph.com (Mo Patel) — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Sfermion is an investment firm focused on backing the founders building the metaverse.

Hello

Welcome to the 49th edition of Sfermion’s Collider where we highlight the latest & greatest news in the world of crypto, gaming & entertainment, consumer trends, AI, macro, and more!

Bi-weekly, we aim to drop a curated list of the most exciting stories & updates that we believe are enabling the future of tech and the emergence of the metaverse.

Crypto Updates

Ethereum ETFs Hit $107M Inflows on Debut: 'Very Solid First Day' (link)

Morgan Stanley Advisors Soon Can Offer BTC ETFs to Clients (link)

California DMV Makes History, Digitizes 42M Car Titles on Avalanche Blockchain (link)

Lummis Announces Revolutionary Proposal to Supercharge the Dollar, Bolster U.S. Economy (link)

Trump Pledges to Fire Gensler, Hire People Who ‘Love’ Crypto (link)

Fold to Go Public (link)

Coinbase Asset Management Plans Tokenized Money-Market Fund, a Hot Area After BlackRock's BUIDL Success (link)

OKX Ventures and Aptos Foundation Jointly Launch $10M Ecosystem Growth Fund and Accelerator to Boost Aptos Ecosystem Growth (link)

Ferrari Expands Cryptocurrency Payments Across Europe After US Launch (link)

Proton releases a self-custody bitcoin wallet (link)

Avail DA Mainnet and $AVAIL Token Go Live (link)

English Football Club Owned by Bitcoiner Adds $4.5M Bitcoin to Its Treasury (link)

Marathon Digital Buys $100M of BTC (link)

Russia Legalizes Mining and Approves the Use of Crypto for Int’l Payments, But… (link)

Qatar to Legally Recognize Digital Assets By Q4 2024 (link)

No Other Crypto ETFs In The Foreseeable Future: BlackRock (link)

Gaming Updates

Atari partners with Coinbase to bring Asteroids and Breakout to blockchain (link)

Manchester United Launches Web3 Game 'Fantasy United' (link)

Telegram Hits 950M Users Amid Crypto Gaming Boom (link)

Monthly Audience of WeChat Mini Games Reached 500M Users

Gaming Startup Funding Fell In Q2 (link)

Monopoly Go transforms back into a board game (link)

Warner Bros Games acquires MultiVersus studio Player First (link)

Roblox announces Team USA Olympic and Paralympic Games partnership (link)

80+ Netflix Stories games in development and plans to release "about one new title per month" (link)

Earn Alliance launches Ally Pass rewards system with TGE on 24th September (link)

EA Sports College Football 25 sold 2.2M $100 copies with early access (link)

Freestyle Chess debuts with $12M in funding for tournament series (link)

Wuthering Waves sails past $100M in under two months (link)

Zenless Zone Zero surpasses $50M in 11 days (link)

Animoca Brands’ Mocaverse, MOCA Foundation, and TON Foundation execute strategic partnership via token swap (link)

AI Updates

Mark Zuckerberg calls for open-source AI as Meta releases Llama 3.1 (link)

Google DeepMind AI Scores 28 Points, Wins Silver at International Mathematical Olympiad with AlphaProof and AlphaGeometry 2 (link)

Meta moves on from its celebrity lookalike AI chatbots, creates new AI studio for custom chatbots (link)

A match 'made in heaven': Inside Canva’s stunning Leonardo.Ai acquisition (link)

Nvidia preparing version of new flagship AI chip for Chinese market (link)

OpenAI Tests New AI Search Features in Direct Challenge to Google (link)

AI Startup Cohere Valued at $5.5B in New Funding Round (link)

VCs are still pouring billions into generative AI startups (link)

California Governor Newsom to Sign Bill Banning AI-Generated Manipulated Voice Ads (link)

Other Updates

Google Reverses Plan to Phase Out Third-Party Cookies in Chrome, Introduces User Choice (link)

Senate passes the Kids Online Safety Act (link)

Intel to Cut Thousands of Jobs to Reduce Costs, Fund Rebound (link)

FTC launches probe into ‘surveillance pricing’ that it says links cost to customer data (link)

U.S. sues TikTok over ‘massive-scale’ privacy violations of kids under 13 (link)

Alphabet to invest $5B in self-driving car unit Waymo (link)

NBA signs broadcasting deal with Disney, Amazon, Comcast worth $77B (link)

$4.7B NFL Sunday Ticket decision overturned in bombshell (link)

Meta burns another $4.5B on metaverse in Q2, preps for AI growth (link)

Meta to pay $1.4B to settle Texas facial recognition data lawsuit (link)

Pershing Square USA, Ltd. Withdraws IPO (link)

‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Obliterates R-Rated Record With $205M Opening Weekend, Eighth-Biggest in Box Office History (link)

Reddit Teams Up With The NFL, NBA to Boost Revenue (link)

Apple Moves Forward With Foldable iPhone (link)

Former Tesla humanoid head launches a robotics startup (link)

Research & Interesting Reads

Meta | Open Source AI Is the Path Forward (link)

Konvoy | Fundraising Challenges in Gaming (link)

B3 (NPC Labs, ) | Don't build your own app chain. Build on B3. (link)

GAM3S | Deep Dive on TON Ecosystem and Telegram (link)

GAM3S | Web3 Gaming Attracts 40% of All Private Company Financings in Q2 (link)

Variant Fund | The Future of DEX Trading (link)

Decentralised | Layered Bitcoin (link)

Matthew Ball | Interviewing Epic Games Founder/CEO Tim Sweeney and Author/Entrepreneur Neal Stephenson (link)

Sam Altman | The days are long but the decades are short (link)

Notable Raises

Legal tech Clio raises $900M at a $3B valuation, plans to double down on AI and fintech (link)

Altana, An AI Platform For Supply Chain Data, Hits Unicorn Status After $200M Raise (link)

Galaxy Asset Mgmt Raises $113M for New Venture Fund (link)

OpenAI-backed legal tech startup Harvey raises $100M (link)

Morpho Labs Raises $50M In Latest Funding Round Led By Ribbit Capital (link)

NPC Labs () raises $18M to bring mainstream games to Web3 (link)

Artificial Agency raises $16M to alter NPC behaviour in games (link)

Web3 Infrastructure Platform Caldera Raises $15M in Early-Stage Funding (link)

Peter Thiel's Founders Fund leads $11M round for Pudgy Penguins' parent as it builds new Layer 2 blockchain (link)

Arbitrum-based DuelNow receives $11M funding as Web3 betting heats up (link)

Layer2 Financial Secures $10.7M to Revolutionize Cross-Border Payments, led by Galaxy Ventures (link)

A16z Crypto leads $9M Series A round for energy DePIN project Daylight (link)

aPriori Raises $8M in Seed Funding for Liquid Staking Protocol with Pantera Capital Lead (link)

Mobile multiplayer app Dusk launches with Gen Z focus, raises $8M in funding (link)

Bitcoin scaling network Mezo raises $7.5M in new funding (link)

New gaming studio Blue Scarab raises $7M in funding round (link)

Polychain and Lightspeed Co-Lead $7M Seed Round for Web3 AI Startup Hyperbolic (link)

OpenSocial Protocol raises $6M in funding from Framework Ventures and North Island Ventures (link)

Aww Raises $6M to Create A Platform for Developing Global Virtual Stars and Their Communities (link)

DAOBase Secures $6M Funding To Enhance DAO Governance (link)

Pengu creator Slay raises $5M for social gaming platform (link)

Google and Coinbase vets raise $5M (led by CoinFund) to build Icebreaker, blockchain’s answer to LinkedIn (link)

Dstlry raises $5M for digital comics publishing and marketplace (link)

Crypto proprietary trading firm Breakout raises $4.5M in seed funding (link)

NFT startup Mintify raises $3.4M in additional funding (link)

Blockchain gaming ecosystem Panda Titan Secures $3M Funding (link)

K-pop Music NFT platform MetaBeat raises $3M in funding from FZF Ventures (link)

JokeRace, the onchain competition platform used by Polygon, Farcaster and Bankless, raises $3M round (link)

17-year-old Eric Zhu’s startup, Aviato raised $2.3M and is emerging from stealth to focus on an analytical platform for private market data (link)

Raad Labs raises $2.25M in quest to revolutionize weather data collection via web3 (link)

Look North World raises $2.25M for its Fortnite UGC games and creator label (link)

Kuru Labs Raises $2M Seed Round Led by Electric Capital (link)

We.Rich, a User-Generated Assets platform, raise $2M in Seed led by Folius Ventures and Animoca Brands (link)

Echo Chunk raises $1.4M to make AI-based puzzle games (link)

Binance Labs Invests in Pluto Studio, aPriori, and Particle Network

Mo & Andrew's Curated

Macro

Joe Biden

@JoeBiden

Heather Long

@byHeatherLong

JUST IN: Strong growth in Q2. The US economy grew at a 2.8% pace in Q2 2024. That’s way above expectations of 1.9% and a big jump from 1.4% in Q1.

Consumer spending was the key (+2.3% in the quarter). Biz investment and gov't spending also helped.

Bottom line: The economy keeps…

Crypto

Bitcoin Magazine

JUST IN: Kamala Harris decided NOT to speak at #Bitcoin 2024 Conference in Nashville, CEO David Bailey confirms.

Will

@WClementeIII

Trump speech recap:

- US to become crypto capital of the world
- To create strategic Bitcoin reserve for US
- To fire Gary Gensler on day 1
- Views stablecoins as pro dollar
- To end Operation Chokepoint 2.0
- To bring Bitcoin mining to the US

Bitcoin Archive

@BTC_Archive

NEW: $1.5T Franklin Templeton has partnered with one of Japan's biggest financial services companies, SBI Holdings, to launch a Bitcoin ETF in Japan - Nikkei

Eric Balchunas

@EricBalchunas

Just checked and yes looks like Michigan's Pension bought up some $ARKB (altho we have it as $7.4m) which is small %-wise for them but its a start, they now third pension to report owning a btc ETF

Bitcoin Magazine

JUST IN: State of Michigan Pension reported owning $6.6 million in #Bitcoin ETF: SEC Fillings

DEGEN NEWS

NEW: @vaneck_us DROPS SPOT $ETH ETF $ETHV AD FEATURING @pudgypenguins

Will

@WClementeIII

Holy shit Saylor's trying to buy another $2 billion of BTC

Bitwise

@BitwiseInvest

Announcement: Today, the Bitwise Ethereum ETF (ETHW) became the first U.S. ETP to publish its Ethereum addresses and set ENS subnames for each address.

1.ethw.bitwise.eth -> 0xa15c...2A69
2.ethw.bitwise.eth -> 0xEd92...b4eF
3.ethw.bitwise.eth -> 0x3339...7cB5
4.ethw.bitwise.eth…

DEGEN NEWS

BREAKING: $920.7 BILLION AUM ASSET MANAGER @hamilton_lane LAUNCHES PRIVATE CREDIT FUND ON SOLANA

Avalanche 🔺

@avax

What else can an Avalanche L1 do?

The California DMV is launching its own chain on Avalanche to modernize the vehicle title transfer experience for CA's 39M+ residents

In partnership with @oxheadalpha, the @CA_DMV has already successfully digitized 42M car titles on-chain.…

Mark Cuban

@mcuban

The reason why this is HUGE for crypto is because the people holding the tokens will have an app with a Avalanche wallet.

Tens of millions of Californians having and using a crypto wallet over the next 5 years or however long it takes , normalizes the use of wallets and crypto…

thrills seeker

@thrillsseeker

Help me out here, Mark. Blockchain is the DB on top of which crypto resides. This is a validation of the Blockchain technology, which no one has ever argued about. But why do you think this is a validation of crypto?

DEGEN NEWS

BREAKING: @pumpdotfun BECOMES THE PROTOCOL WITH THE HIGHEST 24H REVENUE

Yano 🟪

@JasonYanowitz

Google is quietly pushing big into crypto.

Cloud support, blockchain analytics, node infra, free testnet ETH, validator for several big L1s and L2s, integration into search, and more.

Do not sleep on this.

Austin King

@0xASK

We all know Base -- second largest rollup in less than a year, insane success.

But have you even heard of their latest chain abstraction product MagicSpend?

Strategically this expands Coinbase's territory across all rollups, and it's going unnoticed. Here's the breakdown:…

Nigel Eccles

@nigeleccles

Some quick thoughts on @Polymarket.

Firstly, every election cycle since 2008 has seen the emergence of a go-to prediction market with mainstream press coverage. We've had Intrade, Hubdub (which I co-founded), IEM, Predictit and a bunch of others.

They definitely aren't new.…

Wu Blockchain

Grayscale officially launched Grayscale Decentralized AI Fund LLC, with initial investments including: Bittensor (TAO) 2.92%, Filecoin (FIL) 30.59%, Livepeer (LPT), 8.64% Near (NEAR), 32.99% Render (RNDR) 24.86%. The fund's key areas of focus include: chatbots and image…

NFT

Abstract

@AbstractChain

Introducing Abstract, the blockchain for consumer crypto.

Through @IglooInc; @foundersfund, @fenbushi, @1kxnetwork and others will contribute towards bringing the next generation of crypto users, onchain.

Learn more and how to participate below:

doodles

introducing Doodlesᵗᵛ

a next gen, direct-to-community media platform that bridges the gap between artists & communities, enabling them to experience and own a piece of the cultural moments that matter, before anyone else

create
collect
connect

all on Doodlesᵗᵛ

Persona

@Persona_Journey

To celebrate Persona coming to @base , we’re launching an exclusive Open Edition NFT!

Mint this custom Persona x Base NFT: zora.co/collect/base:0…

Available from July 25th to August 24th

doodles

journey beyond the threshold of sanity!

the official trailer for 'Dullsville and the Doodleverse' is here:

catherine

@0x_catherine

XCOPY released 2 new DAMAGE CONTROL editions this week - bringing the series to 7 editions and 1,649 pieces minted so far

With open mints & burns there is a lot to keep track of so I made a new dashboard you can reference

Some interesting takeaways from the collection so far:

Gaming

GOAT Gaming

@playgoatgaming

Genesis GOATs are:

The heart of $GOAT
The key to greatness
Up only

Are you GOAT enough?

Gam3Girl Ventures

@GAM3GIRLVC

Let’s take a moment to introduce ourselves! We are Gam3Girl Ventures @GAM3GIRLVC, a premier Web3 gaming incubation fund. As we stand at the threshold of a transformative shift in gaming innovation, we are committed to leading the charge and investing in visionary founders &…

Phylicia Koh (She/her)

@ppphyl

Will Telegram become the next gaming distribution Super App?
I think it's got a good shot. Here's a breakdown of why.

First things first, what is a "Super App"?

My simple take: a Super App is any app that allows users to perform multiple tasks in a single place. Typically…

HELIKA

@HelikaGaming

Helika @Pixelmon

We're happy to announce our partnership with Pixelmon, the monster-collecting IP of Web3.

Over the past year, the team has been working to rapidly expand its library of games.

The team released Kevin the Adventurer in October '23, an endless runner game.…

GnosisDAO

@GnosisDAO

We are excited to introduce Gnosis AI, a division of Gnosis Labs working at the intersection of AI and web3!

Our vision is to make Gnosis the Schelling point for AI agents in web3.

Details ↓

Other

Lex Fridman

@lexfridman

Here's my 8.5 hour conversation with @elonmusk & @neuralink team.

It is the longest podcast I've ever done! It's a fascinating, super technical, and wide-ranging conversation.

It's here on X & everywhere else, including YouTube: youtube.com/watch?v=Kbk9Bi…

On X, it's split up…

George Mack

@george__mack

You're a billionaire.

A realisation after a health scare.

= Sfermion Portfolio Company

Curated by @mopat1214 + @AndrewSteinwold

Sfermion's Collider #48

sfermions-collider@newsletter.paragraph.com (Mo Patel) — Mon, 29 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Sfermion is an investment firm focused on backing the founders building the metaverse.

Hello 👋

Welcome to the 48th edition of Sfermion’s Collider where we highlight the latest & greatest news in the world of crypto, gaming & entertainment, consumer trends, AI, macro, and more!

Bi-weekly, we aim to drop a curated list of the most exciting stories & updates that we believe are enabling the future of tech and the emergence of the metaverse.

Crypto Updates

Coinbase, Kraken, Others Form a Blockchain Security Standards Council 'BSSC' (link)

WazirX Loses $230M in Suspected DPRK Hack (link)

FTX and CFTC Agree to $12.7B Settlement Pending Court Approval (link)

SEC Drops Investigation into Stacks Bitcoin L2 (link)

SEC Ends Probe Into Paxos With No Actions On BUSD (link)

TON Blockchain Ecosystem to Get New Layer-2 Network Based on Polygon Tech (link)

Uniswap Labs publicly launches wallet browser extension supporting 11 blockchains (link)

BlackRock tokenized treasury fund BUIDL reaches $500M (link)

Trump chooses crypto-friendly Senator Vance as VP pick (link)

House Fails to Overturn Biden Veto on Pro-Crypto Banking Bill (link)

CFTC Chair Says 70-80% of Crypto Assets Are Not Securities (link)

Squarespace DNS Hijacking Puts Over 220 DeFi Protocols at Risk (link)

Polygon Labs, Google Cloud, Accenture Revolutionize Loyalty Programs (link)

Circle says EURC is Coming to Base (link)

Telegram Announces Plans for Mini App Store to Boost Crypto Scene (link)

State Street Said to Explore Creating Stablecoin, Deposit Token (link)

Grayscale launches new fund for decentralized artificial intelligence (link)

Arthur Hayes’ Maelstrom Fund Aims to Boost Bitcoin Development via Grants (link)

Story Protocol plans to launch IP-focused Layer 1 this year (link)

Coinbase Unveils Web App to Track Personal On-Chain Wallets (link)

Mastercard Integrates Account Opening API with Alchemy Pay (link)

Tezos and Baanx To Launch Non-Custodial Crypto Debit Card (link)

Li.Fi DeFi Protocol Suffers $9M Security Breach (link)

TON Blockchain Ecosystem to Get New Layer-2 Network Based on Polygon Tech (link)

HashKey Teases Launch Date For Its Ethereum L2 in Q4 (link)

Gaming Updates

MON Protocol (💰) launches Web3-focused investment fund, MON Ventures, to accelerate growth of blockchain gaming studios worldwide (link)

Planet Mojo (💰) Selects Base To Build Web3 Gaming Ecosystem (link)

Anichess (💰) announces Spell Chess S2: The Leaderboard Challenges (link)

Mocaverse (MOCA) goes live with their airdrop and official token launch (link)

Notcoin, 1inch, and Sign launch accelerator for Telegram and TON ecosystems (link)

Genies launches creator and partner network for avatar IP innovation (link)

Sekai secures Naruto’s license to develop consumer apps for anime fans (link)

Forgotten Runiverse is Coming to Ronin! (link)

DM2C (DMM) unveils blockchain game and entertainment platform Seamoon Protocol (link)

Portal introduces ‘PortalPay’ interoperability for blockchain gaming (link)

Two-thirds of Chinese mobile gamers play mini games (link)

Apple approves Epic Games Store for iOS after rejecting it twice (link)

Pokémon Sleep earns $100M in first year revenue (link)

Get ready for the Palworld licensing bonanza (link)

Whataburger launches branded Fortnite map and tournament (link)

AI Updates

OpenAI Releases GPT-4o Mini, a Cheaper Version of Flagship AI Model (link)

Andreessen Horowitz Is Building a Stash of More Than 20,000 GPUs to Win AI Deals (link)

Former OpenAI, Tesla engineer Andrej Karpathy starts AI education platform (link)

Sam Altman, Arianna Huffington Launch AI Health Coaching Company (link)

US chip giant AMD to buy European LLM leader Silo AI for $665M (link)

British Chipmaker Graphcore Acquired by SoftBank Group (link)

Other Updates

NBA agrees to terms on $76B media rights deals (link)

Musk Beats $500M Severance Suit Over Mass Twitter Layoff (link)

Verizon Hit With $2.6B Anti-Piracy Lawsuit From Major Record Labels (link)

Penguin Random House to Acquire Boom! Studios (link)

Paramount and Skydance merge, signaling end of a family reign in Hollywood and the rise of new power (link)

Starlink Mini is now available for anyone in the US to roam (link)

Apple 30% fee extends to Instagram and Facebook ads worldwide today (link)

BlackRock Hits Record AUM as Wall Street Banks Report Solid Earnings (link)

Andreessen Horowitz co-founders explain why they’re supporting Trump (link)

OpenAI illegally barred staff from airing safety risks, whistleblowers say (link)

Research & Interesting Reads

Messari | Understanding Lit Protocol: A Comprehensive Overview (link)

Galaxy | Crypto & Blockchain Venture Capital – Q2 2024 (link)

Binance | Half-Year Report 2024 (link)

Coinbase Ventures | ELI5 L3s (link)

Jihoz | The Web3 Gaming Growth Handbook (link)

Galaxy | Staking: Risks & Rewards (link)

Franklin Templeton | The next frontier in cloud computing (link)

1kx | Introducing Atlas: Web3 Data Provider Performance Dashboard (link)

Konvoy | Building a Foundation for Esports (link)

Digital Native | Keeping Up with the Gen Zs (link)

Not Boring | Make the Internet Fun Again (link)

Crunchbase | Global Funding And M&A Picked Up In Q2, While AI Funding Mushroomed (link)

NFT Drops & Updates

Coinbase, Aloe Blacc, and Hume (💰) team up for NFT free mint of remix on-chain song (link)

Team USA Basketball and Coinbase team up for NFT free mint (link)

Trump hints at 4th NFT collection, fears Chinese crypto take-over (link)

Notable Raises

Index Ventures Announces $2.3B in New Funds at a Historical Inflection Point for Startups (link)

Coatue, General Catalyst Back Figma at $12.5B Value (link)

Sequoia, Nvidia Back Startup Fireworks AI at $552M Valuation (link)

Index, Jared Leto Back AI Video Startup Valued at $500M (link)

Skild AI Raises $300M Series A To Build A Scalable AI Foundation Model For Robotics (link)

Earned Wealth Raises $200M for Doctor-Focused Financial Services Platform (link)

Saronic Raises $175M in Series B Funding, Valuing Company at $1B (link)

Hebbia raises $130M Series B led by a16z (link)

Crypto Investment Firm Hypersphere Unveils $130M Market Fund (link)

Menlo Ventures raises $100M AI fund in partnership with Anthropic (link)

Standard Bots Secures $63M in Funding to Propel American Manufacturing Forward with AI-Driven Robotics (link)

Partior, Blockchain Payment Network Backed by JPMorgan and DBS, Raises $60M Series B (link)

Volley raises $55M voice-enabled AI games (link)

Digital Asset Trader Auros to Invest Over $50M in Crypto Startups Through Its Newly Established VC Arm (link)

Athletic Brewing raises $50M as nonalcoholic wave sweeps beer making (link)

Bitrue Ventures launches Web3-focused $40M investment fund (link)

SolanaLegend raises $20M for "Frictionless Fund I" to focus on blockchain startups (link)

Visa-linked Allium announces $16.5M raise, Chainbase announces $15M Series A (link)

Allium raises $16.5M as crypto funding activity cools (link)

Chainbase Raises $15M to Grow Omnichain Data Network (link)

ZAP, a blockchain startup, has raised $15M in fund (link)

Build on Bitcoin Raises $10M in Seed Funding (link)

Blockchain Startup Rome Raises $9M to Serve Ethereum Layer-2s Through Solana (link)

Crypto-AI startup Mira raises $9M in seed funding (link)

Rome Protocol secures $9M to bring Solana capabilities to Ethereum Layer-2 (link)

Caliza Secures $8.5M for Real-Time Transfers (link)

Haruko investment platform raises $6M in funds for growth plans in Asia (link)

Term Finance Secures $5.5M In Strategic Financing (link)

Web3 Identity Layer idOS Secures $4.5M Funding (link)

Castle Island Ventures and RW3 Ventures lead $4M seed round for web3 cloud firm Nirvana Labs (link)

Finnish startup Bitmagic raises $4M for AI platform able to create games from text prompts (link)

Crypto investment platform Truvius raises $3.2M pre-seed led by Galaxy Ventures (link)

Square-Enix backs blockchain-based football MMO ‘Soccerverse’ in $3.1M round (link)

Oh Gamers Secures $3M Seed Investment From Axia8 Ventures (link)

Crypto Payment Startup Kulipa Secures $3M (link)

Grand Games raises $3M in funding round (link)

Liquidium’s $2.75M seed round aims to bring Aave-like experience to Bitcoin (link)

On-chain credit and yield platform Idle raises $2.4M in total strategic funding (link)

BoredElon secures $2.2M angel round for Edison Metaverse, to power MMO metaverse experiences (link)

Mo & Andrew's Curated

Macro

Elon Musk

The European Commission offered 𝕏 an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us.

The other platforms accepted that deal.

𝕏 did not.

Margrethe Vestager

@vestager

In our view @X doesn’t comply with the DSA in key transparency areas. It misleads users, fails to provide adequate ad repository and blocks access to data for researchers. It’s the first time we issue preliminary findings under the Digital Services Act. europa.eu/!CGPVCV

Elon Musk

And 𝕏 HQ will move to Austin

Elon Musk

This is the final straw.

Because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas.

Bill Ackman

@BillAckman

I am going to formally endorse @realDonaldTrump. I came to this decision some time ago as many @X followers have already understood from my supportive posts of Trump and my criticisms of @POTUS Biden.

The reason why I have not yet formally done so is that I want to explain my…

unusual_whales

Microsoft, $MSFT, has laid off its internal DEI team, per BI.

Michael Dell

@MichaelDell

Fascinating #Bitcoin

BITCOINLFG®

@bitcoinlfgo

BIG BREAKING

CHINA IS LIKELY TO UNBAN #BITCOIN IN Q4 2024 : REPORTS

nic carter

Official Republican party platform on crypto. Couldn't really ask for anything more:

End crypto crackdown
No CBDC
Right to mine
Right to self-custody
Right to transact freely

Eric Balchunas

@EricBalchunas

Hard to overstate how big a deal it is for Larry Fink, who runs $10.6T, to keep giving these full throated endorsements of bitcoin as legit asset class for everyday portfolios. Buy in from BlackRock - as well as other legacy firms like Fidelity - gives boomer advisors comfort and…

Bitcoin Magazine

JUST IN: BlackRock CEO Larry Fink says he is a major believer in #Bitcoin after studying it.

Web3

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: $1.64 trillion asset manager Goldman Sachs to launch three tokenization projects this year.

vitalik.eth

@VitalikButerin

Left: depositing to @Polymarket today
Right: depositing to @Polymarket as it should be

Let's work together on rolling out ERC-3770 and ERC-7683 today!

mert | helius | hSOL

@0xMert_

the big news is here

today we're introducing ZK compression to Solana, directly on the L1 — without requiring L2s

this changes everything you thought you knew about Solana and scaling L1s

TL;DR — we compress onchain state to get 10,000x scale improvements and get 1 step closer…

Wu Blockchain

WuBlockchain has counted twenty TOP projects that may issue tokens in the second half of the year, including Monad, Aleo, Magic Eden, Berachain, Babylon, Scoll, Karak, Movement, SynFutures, Backpack, Puffer, LiFi, Lens, Solv, Symbiotic, Swell, Zircuit, StakeStone, Hamster Kombat…

Coinbase Wallet 🛡️

@CoinbaseWallet

Meet the new Coinbase Wallet web app.

All of your crypto. All of your wallets. All in one place.

Your new home for everything onchain.

→ wallet.coinbase.com/ocs

hodlonaut 80 IQ 10%er 🌮⚡🔑 🐝

@hodlonaut

Loving Craig’s website right now.

And it stays like this for 3 months.

craigwright.net

matthew sigel, recovering CFA

We at @vaneck_us are pleased to announce that @CBOE just filed our 19b-4 to list and trade shares of the FIRST Solana exchange-traded fund in the US!

We look forward to engaging with the SEC during the review period.

matthew sigel, recovering CFA

ONE HUNDRED MILLION MONTHLY ACTIVE DEGENERATES

NFT

doodles

journey beyond the threshold of sanity!

the official trailer for 'Dullsville and the Doodleverse' is here:

Bold

@boldleonidas

After a long time mulling over each pixel, finally the @boldinals have been inscribed.

Othersidemeta

Project Dragon
July 27th, 2024
Noon ET

Meebits, Voyagers, Kodas, BAYC, MAYC, BAKC, Grailed, Moonbirds, Kodamara, & HVs can all attend. More info to come.

Gaming

Jungle

@jungle_xyz

We're Psyched To Announce We're Building On @solana

Our First Game - For The Win (FTW) - Has Just Entered Its Final Development Phase And Is Getting Ready For Global Launch By End of Year

We Can't Wait To Show You What We've Been Cooking And Push Forward The Meta For Web3…

Anomaly

@anomalygamesinc

The Anomaly Telegram Game Launcher is live!

Invite friends with your unique code & watch those points soar, earning 16% of all points they earn while playing Anomaly Games like Dicestone and Pinball.

User-friendly, Telegram-based launcher with multiple games
Auto wallet…

TylerD 🧙‍♂️

So there's a pretty wild Crypto x AI story actively playing out right now.

It involves a16z gp Marc Andreessen giving $50k in crypto to an AI agent.

Who has since plotted to use the funds to launch a shitcoin.

And is also an S-tier shitposter.

Let me back up.

Andy Ayrey…

Other

Justin Welsh

@thejustinwelsh

50 pieces of advice after 5 years as an entrepreneur:

1. Nobody is coming to save you.
2. Be on time for important things.
3. Go to therapy and be honest.
4. Drink less alcohol.

GREG ISENBERG

@gregisenberg

I came across Facebook's beautiful employee handbook by Ben Barry for the first time today.

And I think every employee and founder needs to see it.

Even Zuckerberg-haters will probably be impressed.

A sneak peek into 15 pages of the Facebook Employee Handbook:

💰 = Sfermion Portfolio Company

Curated by @mopat1214 + @AndrewSteinwold

Sfermion's Collider #47

sfermions-collider@newsletter.paragraph.com (Mo Patel) — Wed, 10 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Sfermion is an investment firm focused on backing the founders building the metaverse.

Welcome to the 47th edition of Sfermion’s Collider where we highlight the latest & greatest news in the world of crypto, gaming & entertainment, AR/VR, AI, macro, and more!

Bi-weekly, we aim to drop a curated list of the most exciting stories & updates that we believe are enabling the future of tech and the emergence of the metaverse.

Crypto Updates

Coinbase + Stripe team up to expand global adoption of crypto (link)

Solana Foundation unveils “Blinks” tool that turn any website or app into starting point for crypto transactions (link)

Sony Group Planning Launch of Crypto Exchange With Acquisition of Amber Japan (link)

Coinbase sues SEC, FDIC for information relating to crypto regulation (link)

U.S. Marshals Tap Coinbase for Crypto Custody Needs (link)

SEC Sues Consensys Over Alleged Securities Violations (link)

Silvergate Bank Pays $63M Settlement with SEC (link)

Don't Tell Anyone, but Private Blockchains Handle Over $1.5T of Securities Financing a Month (link)

Blast L2 Launches Foundation and the long-awaited $BLAST TGE (link)

Consensys Buys Wallet Guard Safety Tool (link)

MetaMask Launches Pooled Staking for Ethereum Users (link)

Bitcoin miner Northern Data eyes $16B IPO for US cloud and mining units (link)

Animoca Brands Looks to Crypto-Friendly Markets for Potential 2025 Listing (link)

Polkadot’s $245M Treasury Would Last 2 Years at Current Spending Rate (link)

Polygon Miden Launches $35M Grant Initiative to Propel Innovation (link)

Zksync is Introducing the Elastic Chain (link)

Layer3 announces Layer3 Protocol and future chain vision (link)

Secret Network’s Confidential Computing Layer is now integrated with Optimism’s OP Mainnet (link)

UFC and Blockasset Announce Multi-Year Global Marketing Partnership (link)

Former Apple, Google, Meta, Tesla and X execs join Sam Altman's Worldcoin project (link)

Jason Derulo Becomes Latest Celebrity to Promote Meme Coin, Faces Rug Pull Allegations (link)

UFC Star's New Meme Coin Crashes to Zero Amid Insider Trading Claims (link)

Gaming Updates

Notcoin and Helika () Gaming unveil $50M Telegram Gaming Accelerator (link)

Mighty Action Heroes () Unveils GOAT Gaming Platform and Launches Airdrop Campaign: The Road To $GOAT (link)

Team Liquid and Community Gaming () announce 20K USDC Tournament Series For Onchain Summer 2024 (link)

Netmarble is migrating its MarbleX platform to Immutable () (link)

AniLive () officially goes live with their mobile VTubing platform on Android (link)

Shardbound () Open Beta Launching on Epic Games Store (link)

Moonray () goes live with their open beta and play-to-airdrop campaign (live)

Midnight Society Cuts Ties with DrDisrespect Following Scandal (link)

Konami Digital Entertainment unveils critical web3/NFT infrastructure "Resella" in collaboration with Ava Labs (link)

MapleStory Universe Pre-Launch Campaign - 'MapleStory Universe: The Genesis' Begins on June 24 (link)

Earn Alliance and Sky Mavis Partner to Create a Reward-Based Experience for Gamers on Ronin (link)

Sky Mavis onboards Lumiterra (DeFi MMORPG) to the Ronin ecosystem (link)

Crypto exchange OKX announces gaming launchpad (link)

‘Pixels’ Creators Plot More Crypto Games—Maybe on Telegram Too (link)

Keywords Studios reaches £2.2B acquisition agreement with Swedish investment company EQT (link)

VR title Gorilla Tag has earned over $100M since 2021 (link)

Nazara eyes full acquisition of Kiddopia in $36M deal (link)

AI Updates

Investors Pour $27.1B Into A.I. Start-Ups, Defying a Downturn (link)

SK Hynix Plans to Invest $75B on Chips Through 2028 (link)

Google’s carbon emissions surge nearly 50% due to AI energy demand (link)

Meta Introduces Meta 3D Gen for Rapid High-Quality Text-to-3D Asset Generation in Under One Minute (link)

Meta drops AI bombshell: Multi-token prediction models now open for research (link)

Apple Poised to Get OpenAI Board Observer Role as Part of AI Pact (link)

Tech Investor Sean Parker Leads Rescue of Struggling AI Startup StabilityAI (link)

SoftBank Chief Rues Selling Nvidia Stake and Missing Out on $150B (link)

Amazon is secretly working on a ChatGPT killer (link)

How King is using AI to speed up development of new Candy Crush levels (link)

Character.AI now allows users to talk with AI avatars over calls (link)

Other Updates

E.U. Charges Microsoft With Antitrust Violations Over Teams/Office Bundling (link)

Jury Rules NFL Owes More Than $4B in Sunday Ticket Antitrust Case (link)

Hedge fund Jain Global Raises $5.3B, Secures Cash From Abu Dhabi (link)

Assange Freed from Prison Following U.S. Plea Deal (link)

Amazon to Launch Temu-Like Discount Section With Direct Shipping From China (link)

Target taps Shopify to add sellers to its third-party marketplace (link)

Bezos to Sell $5B of Amazon as Shares Hit Record High (link)

VW will invest up to $5B in Rivian as part of new EV joint venture (link)

SpaceX Tender Offer Said to Value Company at Record $210B (link)

Anduril Nears $12.5B Valuation Round Led by Founders Fund, Sands Capital (link)

BlackRock Buys Preqin for $3.2B in Private Data Push (link)

‘Inside Out 2’ tops $1B at the global box office, first film to do so since ‘Barbie’ (link)

Ballmer Is Richer Than Gates, a First for Microsoft Billionaires (link)

Research & Interesting Reads

Helika & Pantera | State Of The Web3 Gaming Nation '23 - '24 (link)

Bitwise | Why Spot Ethereum ETPs Will Attract Billions (link)

1kx | Prediction Markets: Bottlenecks and the Next Major Unlocks (link)

HackVC | Potential Solutions to Crypto's Vesting Problem (link)

Archetype | Crypto-Powered Status Games (link)

Inception Capital | Telegram: Crypto Island’s bridge to the mainland (link)

a16z | How NFT royalties work: Designs, challenges, and new ideas (link)

Variant Fund | The Marketplaces Edition (link)

USV | Collision Course (link)

Arthur Hayes | Zoom Out (link)

Dria | Leveraging AI to Bring Crypto PMF (link)

A Deep Dive Into The Crypto x AI Ecosystem (link)

WolvesDAO | Is P2A dead? (link)

Dracoon Ventures | Web3 Gaming Revolution: The Rise of Decentralization, Interoperability, and Real-Economic Value in the Gaming Industry (link)

Matthew Ball | What A Century (Plus a Pandemic) Does to Moviegoing and Why It Matters (link)

a16z | Death, Taxes, and AI: How Generative AI Will Change Accounting (link)

NFT Drops & Updates

Igloo, Inc. (Pudgy Penguin parent company) acquires the Frame team and announces plans to contribute towards consumer-focused blockchain via AbstractChain (link)

MLB and Candy Digital launch series of games and giveaways with free mints starting July 9th (link)

Hit webtoon and Asia IP ‘Solo Leveling’ joins Avalanche to launch NFT platform named “OtherWorld” (link)

U.S. Judge Sets Stage for NFT Securities Trial as DraftKings Lawsuit Moves Forward (link)

Mark Cuban wallet seen dumping NFTs after 2 years of inactivity (link)

Notable Raises

Kleiner Perkins Pulls in More Than $2B for New Funds (link)

SoftBank Raises $1.86B Overseas as It Boosts AI Bets (link)

Andrew Ng plans to raise $120M for next AI Fund (link)

Hebbia raises nearly $100M Series B for AI-powered document search led by Andreessen Horowitz (link)

Sentient Raises $85M Co-Led by Founders Fund to Accelerate Open AI Development (link)

Solana-Focused Startup Accelerator Colosseum Raises $60M to Invest in Early-Stage Projects (link)

Digital youth safety startup k-ID raises $45M, led by a16z, to help developers comply with age regulations (link)

Roll-up provider, Conduit, closes $37M round co-led by Paradigm, Haun Ventures (link)

Bitget launches $20M TON ecosystem fund (link)

DWF Labs launches $20M fund for Web3 projects in China (link)

MegaLabs Raises $20M Seed Round led by Dragonfly, Builds First Real-Time Blockchain With Full Ethereum Compatibility (link)

ORA raises $20M, led by Polychain, for tokenizing AI models (link)

Lombard Raises $16M, led by Polychain, to Integrate Bitcoin into DeFi (link)

RedStone Oracles raises $15M led by Arrington Capital (link)

Prodia Raises $15M, led by Dragonfly, to Build More Scalable, Affordable AI Inference Solutions with a Distributed Network of GPUs (link)

Blockchain Ecosystem Company Astria Raises $12.5M in Funding for Permissionless Rollup Development (link)

Pi Squared raises $12.5M, led by Polychain, to build universal ZK Circuit powered by Proof of Proof (link)

Crypto Execution-Only Platform Crossover Markets Raises $12M, co-led by Illuminate Financials and DRW Ventures (link)

Redacted raises $10M for Web3 entertainment ecosystem, led by Spartan Group (link)

Bondex Secures $10M for Web3 Networking Platform (link)

SendBlocks Raises $8.2M for Blockchain Data Management (link)

OpenLedger Raises $8M Seed Round Led by Polychain Capital and Borderless Capital (link)

Decentralized Oracle Network Developer AnchorZero raises $8M in seed funding, co-led by Bain Crypto and Spark Capital (link)

QED Protocol Raises $6M for Scaling with Bitcoin-powered Tech, led by Blockchain Capital (link)

Mamori raises $5M in Blockchain Capital-led seed funding (link)

Blockchain data infrastructure firm Covalent raises $5M in strategic funding (link)

ENSO Secures $4.2M in Funding (link)

Decentralized AI network Allora raises $3M ahead of mainnet launch (link)

Decent Land Labs Raises $3M to Build the First EVM Chain With Scalable Permanent Storage (link)

Rebar Secures $2.9M Seed Round to Build Bitcoin-Based MEV Products, led by 6MV (link)

on-chain risk-based social gaming platform, Cambria, raises $2.5M seed round led by Bitkraft (link)

Machine Learning Platform Onaji Secures $2.5M (link)

Farworld Labs Poised to Launch Farcade Platform with $1.75M Fresh Funds, Gears Up for Anticipated Q3 Releases (link)

Shaga, An Emerging Player In The Cloud Gaming Industry, Secures $1M In Pre-Seed Funding Round (link)

Base Superchain XProtocol raises a strategic round ($5.2M to-date), unveils Xardian Nodes (link)

Mo & Andrew's Curated

Macro

Austen Allred

@Austen

The Supreme Court's Chevron ruling may be most impactful things to happen to startups in a long time, in ways that people don't realize.

A thread:

Matt Hougan

@Matt_Hougan

1/ Ethereum ETPs will attract $15 billion in net flows in their first 18 months on the market.

A thread on how I get to this estimate.

Lisa Abramowicz

@lisaabramowicz1

The increase in continuing jobless claims is notable.

Quinn Thompson

@qthomp

Title: We are amidst one of the most obvious and attractive crypto buying opportunities of recent memory.

Subtitle: While the market has completely reset, the structurally positive election, liquidity and crypto momentum cycles remain intact.

Body: In all of my 5 years in…

Wu Blockchain

According to Arkham, the total value of Bitcoin seized in government wallets in multiple countries is about $17.8 billion. The US government holds about $12 billion in Bitcoin, mainly from the 2013 Silk Road case. The British government holds about $3.3 billion in Bitcoin. The…

Web3

Solana

@solana

Today, we connect Solana to the entire internet.

Vote, Donate, Mint, Swap, Pay — use Solana, everywhere.

Thomas | heyapollo.com

@thomas_fahrer

Someone just smash bought $450m of #Bitcoin on Binance.

Hello Michael Dell?

Ignas | DeFi

@DefiIgnas

Polkadot spent $37m USD in outreach during the first half of 2024, targeting new users, developers, and businesses

• $10m on ads/sponsorships
• $4.4m on influencers
• $4m on digital ads

Yet Polkadot still seems invisible on X and elsewhere.

Steve Will Do It

@stevewilldoit

$HERO . I don’t need money. I give away all my money.. legacy over money . I want respect in the crypto community . Respect is everything. Your word is everything . Your word is the strongest most valuable currency.

Grail.eth

@graildoteth

Damn, Keungz from @yogapetz took the nuclear option and went full scammer mode on his community with the $WELL TGE.

Another day in web3, yet another founder cashes in on his community.

It's one thing to fuck the web3 randoms with a soft rug, but it's another level to blatantly…

Arthur

@Arthur_0x

I think the pendulum will swing to favour the crypto projects that have proven its PMF and resilience over multiple market cycles and re-rate them accordingly. Complete opposite of low float high fdv with lots of hype but delivered little so far.

Some of them trading at absolute…

Milk Road

@MilkRoadDaily

JUST IN: @pumpdotfun surpassed $50 million in revenue in 4 months

NFT

Luca Netz 🐧

@LucaNetz

I am thrilled to announce that we have acquired @frame_xyz and its team to contribute towards building @AbstractChain. By combining forces, we will provide the infrastructure and distribution necessary to usher crypto into the consumer crypto revolution.

Frame

@frame_xyz

Frame has been acquired by @IglooInc, the parent company of @pudgypenguins, to contribute towards Abstract.

@AbstractChain is the blockchain for consumer crypto, pioneering culture, community, and creativity onchain.

Here’s what this means:

DEGEN NEWS

NEW: @vaneck_us IS REPPING A @pudgypenguins PFP

CBB0FE

@Cbb0fe

Made $15m profit from Blur Season 1 and Season 2 but definitely never ever again touching anything related to Blur / Blast team.

Gaming

Champions Tactics

@ChampionsVerse

The ChampionsFreemint Details

Are you prepared to witness the Darkness?

Nifty Island 🏝

@Nifty_Island

The third and final wave of Play-to-Airdrop before $ISLAND token arrives starts this Thursday, June 27th!

This week we’ll be announcing

New features
New partners
New integrations
New $ISLAND token details

Strap in islanders

GOAT Gaming

@playgoatgaming

Challenge: accepted

Crush quests, climb the leaderboard, and get GOATED.

goatgaming.com

Epic Games Newsroom

@EpicNewsroom

Status update on our mobile plans:

DONE:

Submitted the Epic Games Store and Fortnite to Apple for their required notarization process.

IN PROGRESS:

Launch! Targeting the next couple months for the store and Fortnite on iOS in the EU.

Bring our games to other mobile…

DRKVRS

@drkvrs

The time has come - we can finally share our Alpha gameplay trailer!

In this footage, you will see the first location - District 1.
Join us for a journey over the Deathless Chamber, see what awaits you after logging in and explore the basic game mechanics

#Web3Gaming

Sandra

@sandraaleow

a very simple yet concise framework on crypto x AI from @balajis's talk in @superai_conf:

- crypto and AI are both trillion-dollar technologies
- AI is top-down, came from prestigious research labs and eventually by openAI. crypto is bottoms up, started with relatively low…

Accelxr 👾

@accelxr

Onchain AI Agents: Architecture, Examples, and Projects to Follow

The primary purpose of current generative models is content creation and information filtering. However, recent research + discussion around AI Agents - autonomous actors that use external tools to complete user…

Other

non aesthetic things

@PicturesFoIder

There is a new machine in Vegas that allows you to gamble for a chance to win a PSA 10 Charizard

Jeremy Kuo

@jeremykuoo

This is Mike Cessario.

He is
→ founder of Liquid Death
→ mastermind behind Gary Vee's socials
→ the greatest branding genius on planet Earth

Liquid Death got to $1,400,000,000 in 4 years by following these 8 simple principles:

(this is 200x more valuable than any Master's)

Alex & Books 📚

@AlexAndBooks_

Nassim Taleb spends 30 hours every week reading books.

Here are 27 reading tips from @nntaleb:

1) The minute I was bored with a book or a subject I moved to another one, instead of giving up on reading altogether.

2) The trick is to be bored with a specific book, rather than…

Sam D'Amico

@sdamico

FOUR key things in the past 20-30 years are causing the physical world to electrify:
1) magnets got way better, enabling high torque permanent magnet motors.

Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦

@Noahpinion

The world is undergoing a technological shift that might look superficial, but is actually very deep and fundamental.

Electricity is defeating combustion.

noahpinion.blog/p/the-triumph-…

Michael Burry Stock Tracker ♟

@burrytracker

Wow.

@QwQiao

wild

= Sfermion Portfolio Company

Curated by @mopat1214 + @AndrewSteinwold

Sfermion's Collider #46

sfermions-collider@newsletter.paragraph.com (Mo Patel) — Mon, 01 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Sfermion is an investment firm focused on backing the founders building the metaverse.

Hello

Welcome to the 46th edition of Sfermion’s Collider where we highlight the latest & greatest news in the world of crypto, gaming & entertainment, AR/VR, AI, macro, and more!

Bi-weekly, we aim to drop a curated list of the most exciting stories & updates that we believe are enabling the future of tech and the emergence of the metaverse.

Crypto Updates

Polygon unveils 1B $POL token program to boost developer engagement (link)

Terraform to Pay $4.47B to Settle SEC Fraud Case (link)

MicroStrategy Buys 11,931 Bitcoin for $786M (link)

Fox Corporation to Upgrade Verify Beta to Dedicated L2 Built with Polygon CDK, Announces TIME as First Publishing Partner (link)

Fidelity International Tokenizes Money Market Fund on JPMorgan’s Blockchain (link)

OneFootball adopts Mocaverse’s Realm Network to offer Football ID to over 200M football fans (link)

Friend.tech collaborates with Conduit, launches Friendchain (link)

Empowering the Solana Ecosystem: Circle's Web3 Services is Now Available on Solana (link)

Biggest Bank in the World Says Ethereum Is ‘Digital Oil,’ Bitcoin ‘Digital Gold’: Report (link)

Joe Biden’s Administration Sues Coinbase Yet Needs It For Crypto Donations (link)

Coinbase International announces support for pre-launch market (link)

Binance reaches 200M users with $100B in assets under custody (link)

Gaming Updates

Uniswap Labs is Acquiring Crypto: The Game (link)

Introducing: Ronin ZkEVM (link)

Baby Shark Universe X Immutable () Partnership Announcement (link)

Ethereum Network Ronin Launches ‘Forge’ Program to Onboard More Games (link)

Ethereum Wallet MetaMask Now Lets You Launch Crypto Games—Here’s How (link)

VG Insights: Fallout TV Series generated over $80M in Incremental Revenue for Bethesda (link)

Next-Gen Xbox Preview: Everything You Need to Know About the Console and Crypto Plans (link)

AI Updates

Apple announces iOS 18 with new AI features and more customizable homescreen (link)

OpenAI and Apple announce partnership to integrate ChatGPT into Apple experiences (link)

Apple to “Pay” OpenAI for ChatGPT through distribution, not cash (link)

Musk threatens to ban employees from using iPhones (link)

Oracle Stock Jumps to Record High on Microsoft, OpenAI, and Google Deals (link)

OpenAI Names Ex-Nextdoor CEO Sarah Friar as CFO, Kevin Weil as CPO (link)

Other Updates

Photo-sharing app BeReal acquired by Voodoo for €500M (link)

Queen Catalog to Be Acquired by Sony Music for £1B (link)

Tesla shareholders vote to reinstate Elon Musk’s $56B pay package (link)

US sues Adobe for ‘deceiving’ subscriptions that are too hard to cancel (link)

The Big Loser in Tesla’s Shareholder Vote Is Delaware (link)

India pulls in tech giants for its AI ambitions (link)

Apple discontinues short-lived BNPL offering (link)

Starlink Mini brings space internet to backpackers (link)

VTuber Gawr Gura will sing “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” at the Dodgers’ “hololive night” (link)

Research & Interesting Reads

Pantera | Newsflash, Crypto Owners Vote (link)

Konvoy | Voodoo Gets Real (link)

Accel | Our Investment in KGeN (): Ushering in a New Era of Gaming and Data Sovereignty (link)

Notable Raises

Paradigm completes $850M fund to invest in early-stage crypto projects (link)

Mistral secures €600M funding as valuation soars to almost €6B (link)

CMT Digital looks to raise $150M for fourth crypto fund: report (link)

Blockchain engineering group Equilibrium launches venture unit, raising over $30M for first fund (link)

Nexus Laboratories raises $25M from Pantera and Lightspeed to expand ‘zero-knowledge’ privacy tools (link)

Renzo Capitalizes on Restaking Frenzy to Raise $17M From Galaxy, Brevan Howard (link)

Layer3 raises $15M Series A ahead of token launch and airdrop (link)

Polkadot Parachain Moonbeam Launches $13M Gaming & RWA Fund (link)

Nuffle Labs Raises $13M to Expand Modular Infrastructure for Blockchain Layers (link)

Solana gaming Layer 2 Sonic raises $12M round ld by Bitkraft (link)

Ava Protocol lands $10M funding to develop 'super transactions' (link)

Solana-based multisig protocol Squads raises $10M, launches retail wallet app Fuse (link)

Irys raises a total of $8.9M in Lemniscap-led funding round (link)

Hypersonic Laboratories raises $7M for modding platform Helix (link)

Telegram tap-to-earn crypto game Pixelverse raises $5.5M from Delphi, Merit Circle, and others (link)

Verida raises $5M to protect user data amid rise in generative AI (link)

SCRYPT raises $5M to expand crypto asset services (link)

Gudchain Closes $5M Investment Round (link)

Yuliverse Secures $4M in Pre-A Funding Round (link)

Memecoin leverage trading protocol Wasabi raises $3M led by Electric Capital (link)

Tether to Invest More Than $1B in Deals Over Next Year (link)

Mo & Andrew's Curated

Crypto

Consensys

@Consensys

ETHEREUM SURVIVES THE SEC.

Today we’re happy to announce a major win for Ethereum developers, technology providers, and industry participants: the Enforcement Division of the SEC has notified us that it is closing its investigation into Ethereum 2.0.

This means that the SEC…

Tyler Winklevoss

@tyler

I just donated $1 million in bitcoin (15.47 BTC) to @realDonaldTrump and will be voting for him in November. Here’s why:

Over the past few years, the Biden Administration has openly declared war against crypto. It has weaponized multiple government agencies to bully, harass, and…

Phantom

@phantom

gmonad

Optimism

@Optimism

FAULT PROOFS & STAGE 1 HAVE ARRIVED

Open source, permissionless fault proofs are live on OP Mainnet, and with them the OP Stack arrives at Stage 1 decentralization.

This is a major step forward for the Superchain!

Zapper ⚡️

@zapper_fi

1/ Introducing Zapper Protocol

An open protocol incentivizing the interpretation and contextualization of onchain information

Powered by $ZAP

samczsun

@samczsun

sending my thoughts and prayers to the investment partners that have to explain why their portco hacked an american exchange, stole 3m dollars, and laundered it through an ofac-sanctioned protocol

Sandeep | AggLayer 👿

@sandeepnailwal

Fam, as I said yesterday, Two big things announced today

1. Web3 gaming pioneers @Ronin_Network building a zkEVM using @0xPolygon CDK and exploring Agglayer. Bullish for $RON as people can stake RON and run gaming chains

2. @FoxNews, one of the largest media networks in the…

Jason Choi

@mrjasonchoi

Welcome to Bear Town (?)

My primary focus for @tangent_xyz is two things:

1) Investing and working with founders long term on the venture side, and

2) Spotting inflection points on the liquid side to help founders weather them better

This thread is about the latter.…

Delphi Digital

@Delphi_Digital

The Flippening CT ignores

TON's quiet growth, fueled by Telegram's 900M user base, has driven its daily active addresses above Ethereum.

At its core, TON is a bet on Telegram's distribution. Though the ecosystem is nascent, its early growth is promising. But is it enough?

Franklin Templeton Digital Assets

DePIN: Traction in Supply & Early Signs of Increasing Demand

Ansem 🐂🀄️

@blknoiz06

I've been working on @BullpenFi with @salxyz in stealth for 6 months now, have been in crypto since 2017 but never done anything more outside of trading, & schizo-tweeting on this app.

Bullpen is one of the ways that I feel I can leverage my platform to provide value back to…

Sal Qadir

@salxyz

Introducing @BullpenFi's first product — the most advanced Telegram trading bot in the world

From the very beginning, @blknoiz06 and I have been obsessed with building a one-stop shop for retail to trade onchain.

What exactly is Bullpen and how are we different?

Jarry Xiao 🐦‍🔥

@jarxiao

Sandwich bots extracted over 150k SOL from retail memecoin traders last month.

Most of this flow is on coins originating from @pumpdotfun

This market is fundamentally broken: when retail users trade, sophisticated actors should compete to lower their slippage, not maximize it.

NFTs

Base

@base

Coming soon…

@adidas is based

doodles

Doodles is coming home

The Stoodio is officially migrating to @Base this July

learn more about our vision for the future on Ethereum & EVM

Waabam 🧨

@Waabam_eth

The Banana Bill is a 100M $APE proposal with 2 initiatives:

(1) A Commercial Agreements Initiative, to negotiate commercial agreements with projects, companies & protocols committed to building on ApeChain

(2) A User Incentives Initiative, to provide rewards for ApeChain users

Azuki

@Azuki

We're excited to announce that Steve Chung is joining the Azuki team as our new COO.

@stevewchung brings deep expertise from his roles as Chief Global Officer of CJ ENM, CEO of CJ ENM USA, and Chief Growth Officer at FOX. His talent for taking Korean content global and driving…

Elon Musk

It’s patently absurd that Apple isn’t smart enough to make their own AI, yet is somehow capable of ensuring that OpenAI will protect your security & privacy!

Apple has no clue what’s actually going on once they hand your data over to OpenAI. They’re selling you down the river.

Lex Fridman

@lexfridman

Here's my conversation with Aravind Srinivas (@AravSrinivas), CEO of Perplexity. We talk about the history & future of AI, web search, and the Internet. Plus, lots of great advice on how to start and run a company. I met Aravind many years ago at Berkeley, and it was a bit…

Haseeb ＞|＜

@hosseeb

My talk @ Consensus on Decentralized AI Inference!

If you want a brief overview of crypto x AI and why it's such a thorny intersection, give it a watch (20 min)

Alec Stapp

@AlecStapp

If we want the future of artificial intelligence to be built in the United States, then we're gonna need to produce a lot more electricity...

Gaming

Revolving Games

@Revolving_Games

Ecosystem Expansion

Following the Nexian Gems' power-up to Nexus Nodes, it was time for an ecosystem revamp.

Goal: Simplify the RG ecosystem & enhance community rewards.

Let's dive in: medium.com/@RevolvingGame…

1/4

medium.com

Ecosystem Expansion

RCADE Foundation x Revolving Games x Starlings Partnerships

MapleStory Universe

@MaplestoryU

WE’RE GETTING IN GEAR. Starting with the end of “Wen discord?", our official Discord is finally open: discord.gg/MaplestoryUniv…. Come join our playground!

P.S. Told ya Tuner has his ways, also catch the hints at what's coming next?

GOAT Gaming

@playgoatgaming

Fortune favors the

Let the games begin.

premint.xyz/goat-gaming/

Matthew Ball

@ballmatthew

1/ After only 5.5 months, the video game industry has set a tragic new record for in-year layoffs (10,900 versus the prior record of 10,500 in 2023, and the record before that, 8,500 in 2022).

These layoffs span games that were canceled and scaled back, as well as studios that…

SHRAPNEL 🔺 STX3.1 June 24-28

@playSHRAPNEL

✦ The Lunatics ✦

We are super excited to announce the Public Beta launch of “The Lunatics” - an all-new strategy game developed by the amazing @play_alchemy team, exclusively available on Discord! And massive shoutout to the super talented team at @GrowStudioHQ who produced…

Echelon

@EchelonFND

The Echelon Foundation is making adjustments at the request of the founders of Parallel Studios to the "Founder $PRIME" token emission unlock schedule. This adjustment is to signal, in no uncertain terms, alignment between the Parallel Studios team, the $PRIME community, and the…

Other

Elon Musk

Massive increase in likes after they were made private!

Sam Ro 📈

@SamRo

who owns the stock market

Pomp 🌪

@APompliano

This is insane.

Historically you get a better return over time by investing in the S&P at all-time highs compared to any other day.

(H/t @MikeZaccardi)

= Sfermion Portfolio Company

Curated by @mopat1214 + @AndrewSteinwold

Sfermion's Collider #45

sfermions-collider@newsletter.paragraph.com (Mo Patel) — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Sfermion is an investment firm focused on backing the founders building the metaverse.

Hello

Welcome to the 45th edition of Sfermion’s Collider where we highlight the latest & greatest news in the world of crypto, gaming & entertainment, AR/VR, AI, macro, and more!

Weekly, we aim to drop a curated list of the most exciting stories & updates that we believe are enabling the emergence of the metaverse.

Crypto Updates

Robinhood Doubles Down on Crypto With $200M Deal for Bitstamp (link)

Kraken preparing for $100M funding round ahead of possible IPO: Report (link)

Coinbase | A New Era in Crypto Wallets: Smart Wallet is Here (link)

Telegram Launches TON-Linked 'Stars' Currency After Toncoin Hits All-Time High Price (link)

Japanese crypto exchange DMM raises $320M to recover funds after major hack (link)

Mt.Gox Transfers $9B Bitcoin to Single Address as Part of Repayment Plans (link)

Gemini to distribute $2.18B in crypto back to Earn users (link)

Wisconsin Pension Fund Embraces Bitcoin ETFs (link)

Coinbase Boosts Fairshake Super PAC with an Additional $25M Donation (link)

Ripple backs crypto super PAC with a second donation of $25M (link)

A16z backs crypto super PACs with $25M donation (link)

Ethereum Name Service (ENS) proposes migration to Layer 2 (link)

Introducing Gravity (): A Layer 1 Blockchain Designed for Mass Adoption and an Omnichain Future (link)

Caitlyn Jenner Meme Coin Sows Confusion as Observers Question Its Provenance (link)

Watford FC to sell 10% of club as digital equity, including tokens, to investors and fans (link)

Solana validators approve 100% allocation of priority fees, ending 50/50 burn split (link)

EU Declares MEV Illegal Under New Crypto Market Regulations (link)

FTX’s Ryan Salame, One of Sam Bankman-Fried’s Associates, Is Sentenced to 7½ Years (link)

Franklin Templeton considers new altcoin-focused crypto fund (link)

Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment Abandons Spot-Ether ETF Ambition (link)

CME Looks to Take On Binance and Coinbase, Could Launch Spot Bitcoin Trading: Report (link)

NYSE Would Consider Crypto Trading If Regulatory Picture Were Clearer, President Says at Consensus 2024 (link)

Binance Launchpool Introduces IONET $IO (link)

Binance Resumes Mastercard Payments for Crypto (link)

StarkWare plans to bring ZK scaling to Bitcoin alongside Ethereum (link)

Arweave acquires crypto social media app Odysee: ‘We haven’t won until it replaces Twitter’ (link)

MoonPay launches Web3 platform for brands, digital experience (link)

MoonPay lays off 10% of staff despite having 'years of runway' (link)

Gaming Updates

Today () Introduces AI-Powered Character Engine Dreamia (link)

Pudgy Penguins and Mythical Games () Partner to Create AAA Mobile Video Game (link)

The Mystery Society () Joins Immutable () Ecosystem (link)

Mon Protocol () successfully launches $MON on May 27th (link)

Arbitrum to Unlock $250M in $ARB for Ethereum Gaming Projects (link)

Netflix announces Minecraft animated series (link)

YouTube Playables are out now with over 75 games available (link)

Discord’s turning the focus back to games (link)

'The Sandbox' Launches DAO to Let Players Shape Its Future (link)

‘Final Fantasy’ Maker Square Enix Moves to Arbitrum for Ethereum Game NFTs (link)

How Immutable Nexus is Enhancing Gaming with Dedicated zkEVM Chains (link)

Big Games Machine: How People Discover New Games in 2024 (link)

Hyper casual games lead ad media buys at 34% share, with US at the forefront of ad spend (link)

AI Updates

China Creates $47.5B Chip Fund to Back Nation’s Firms (link)

Cisco advances intelligent networking and security as it announces $1B AI investment fund (link)

Nvidia Flips Apple As Stock Hits $3T Market Cap Amid AI Boom (link)

Microsoft’s $650M deal with Inflection AI is facing FTC probe: report (link)

OpenAI launches official ChatGPT support for universities and nonprofits (link)

Vox Media and The Atlantic sign content deals with OpenAI (link)

OpenAI Offers a Peek Inside the Guts of ChatGPT (link)

Microsoft Copilot Is Now on Telegram: Here’s How to Use It (link

Meta’s WhatsApp Is Adding a New AI Assistant for Businesses (link)

OpenAI Says It Has Begun Training a New Flagship A.I. Model (link)

Humane is reportedly trying to sell itself to HP for $1B (link)

Other Updates

Trump Raises $400M in Campaign Donations Since Guilty Verdict (link)

Exclusive: Google, augmented reality startup Magic Leap strike partnership deal (link)

MrBeast Becomes Most Subscribed YouTuber with 266M Subscribers, Surpassing T-Series (link)

Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Sells 10% Stake for $1.05 Billion (link)

Blackstone agrees to buy Japanese manga firm for $1.7B (link)

T-Mobile to Acquire UScellular Wireless Operations and Deliver Exceptional Value, a Superior 5G Experience and Unparalleled Benefits to Millions of Customers (link)

ConocoPhillips to Acquire Marathon Oil in $17.1B All-Stock Deal (link)

GameStop shares jump more than 20% after $933M stock sale (link)

Salesforce's stock suffers its biggest drop in two decades (link)

China fines Evergrande's Hengda $577M for fraudulent bond issuance (link)

Warner Bros. Discovery hikes prices for Max streaming service (link)

Amazon, Walmart, and Big Retail’s race to cut prices (link)

Research & Interesting Reads

Delphi Digital | UGC Gaming & Web3 (link)

Bitkraft | Exploring the Future of Gaming: The Rise of Fully Onchain Games (link)

Khosla Ventures | Plausible tomorrows (link)

Haun Ventures | A Marketing Mantra for Founders (link)

a16z games | Why everything looks like a game (link)

Portal Ventures | Chapter Two of Bitcoin (link)

Binance | The Future of Bitcoin #3: Scaling Bitcoin (link)

How Stumble Guys beat Fall Guys at its own game (link)

Konvoy | Virtual Pets (link)

NFT Updates

Feds Charge UK Nationals With $3M ‘Evolved Apes’ Ethereum NFT Scam (link)

Dapper Labs’ $4M settlement reaffirms NBA NFTs aren’t securities: CEO (link)

Galaxy Digital uses historic violin NFT to secure loan (link)

F1 Team McLaren Reveals Free Ethereum NFTs With OKX (link)

Super Punk World begins trading on Magic Eden (link)

Notable Raises

Stashh Labs () Raises Over $3.3M for NFT Platform Upgrade (link)

Elon Musk's xAI secures $6B in funding (link)

Nvidia and Salesforce double down on AI startup Cohere in $450M round (link)

US-Listed BitDeer Secures $150M Investment from Tether, Stock Rises 7% (link)

Paradigm Leads $70M Funding Round for Babylon Bitcoin Project (link)

Peter Thiel's Founders Fund co-leads $43M Series A for modular blockchain Avail (link)

Bain Capital Crypto leads $35M Series A for M^0, a network for minting digital dollars (link)

The Sandbox raises $20M at $1B Valuation (link)

Tether invests $18.75M in XREX to facilitate cross-border payments in emerging markets (link)

Fhenix Raises $15M and Launches Testnet of Confidentiality-Focused L2 (link)

Coinbase and Haun Ventures invest $11M in Neynar, a toolbox for Web3 social networks (link)

Web3 Cybersecurity Company GoPlus Raises $10M to Build Permissionless Security Layer (link)

Riema Labs (Nubit) raised $8M in a Seed funding round (link)

Mountain Protocol raises $8M to bring USDM stablecoin to Solana, real-world businesses (link

Glacier Network Raised $8M in Angel and Seed Rounds at 100M Valuation (link)

‘Xociety’ Developer Raises $7.5M to Launch Sui Shooter Game (link)

Switchboard raises $7.5M to help provide blockchain projects links to real-world data (link)

ARPA Network Secures $6M Investment to Advance On-Chain Gaming and Cryptographic AI (link)

OpenSocial Protocol Raises $5M to Boost SocialFi Super Apps (link)

DWF Labs Invests $5M in Milady, Pioneering Meme Capital Movement in Web3 (link)

Mint Blockchain raises $5m in Seed funding (link)

NodeOps Raises $5M in Seed Round to Transform Node Infrastructure (link)

TRALA Successfully Raised $5M From Fundraising Rounds (link)

Gamefam Launches $5M Fund for UGC Creators (link)

Supervillain Labs $4.5M Funding - Web3 Gaming with Aptos and Intella X (link)

Play AI Raises $4.3M at $70M Valuation (link)

Anzen Finance Raises $4M Seed Round from Mechanism Capital, Circle Ventures, Frax, Arca and More to Bring the Benefits of Real-World Assets (RWA) into DeFi (link)

Cookie3 secures $3.3M in a Strategic funding round led by Animoca Brands (link)

El Dorado Raises $3M to Build Crypto Payments Superapp for Latin America (link)

Juicy Button Games launches with $3M in funding, led by The Games Fund (link)

Mo & Andrew's Curated

Macro

Watcher.Guru

BREAKING: President Biden vetoes bill that allows highly regulated financial firms to hold #Bitcoin and crypto.

Ash Crypto

@Ashcryptoreal

BREAKING

THE US TREASURY WILL INITIATE A
BUYBACK PROGRAM FROM MAY 29

ABOUT $2 BILLION WILL FLOW INTO
THE ECONOMY EVERY WEEK.

FRESH LIQUIDITY WILL ENTER THE
MARKET, WHICH IS HUGELY BULLISH
FOR #BITCOIN AND CRYPTO.

Altcoin Daily

@AltcoinDailyio

Ethereum on exchanges just hit a 6 year low.

The Kobeissi Letter

Has stagflation been confirmed?

Second reading of US Q1 2024 GDP just fell to 1.3%, below the initially reported growth of 1.6% last month.

This is ~60% less than the 3.4% growth seen in Q4 2023.

This downward GDP revision primarily reflected slower consumer spending of…

Web3

vitalik.eth

@VitalikButerin

I'm feeling quite unhappy about with "this cycle’s celebrity experimentation" so far.

"Financialization as a means toward an end", I can respect if the end is worthy (healthcare, open source software, art, etc). Financialization *as the final product*,

Ashton and Mila's…

hayden.eth 🦄

@haydenzadams

It’s not ivory tower to have values and talk about them, and push people towards positive social change

I like trading and memecoins. I like people making money on the platform I built

But I’m not a fan of the memecoin people who’ve been here for 1 year or less harassing the…

Vlad Tenev

@vladtenev

We believe crypto will fundamentally reorganize the financial system, and we’re acquiring @Bitstamp to accelerate our vision. Soon we’ll combine forces with Bitstamp’s global footprint, core spot exchange and industry-leading products like crypto-as-a-service, institutional…

cygaar

@0xCygaar

Just tested Coinbase Smart Wallet for the first time. This is an absolute game changer.

Went from no wallet (no extension) to minting an NFT in 20 seconds. All while signing securely with Touch ID.

This is how we bring mass retail onchain, huge kudos to the Coinbase team.

pump.fun

@pumpdotfun

LIVESTREAMING is now LIVE on pump dot fun

go live now and live forever

stacks.btc

@Stacks

@Grayscale, the largest crypto asset manager, is launching the $STX Trust.

This will give investors exposure to the leading Bitcoin L2 solution.

Read more about what the #Stacks Trust means and unlocks (1/5)

(Image by Grayscale)

Chris Burniske

@cburniske

'Crypto apps' that hit next year will spin up users at a rate on par with ChatGPT -- users will onboard in the tens to hundreds of millions, en masse, quickly. We'll go from asking, "Where is the adoption?" to running around with our hair on fire with too much adoption.…

Wu Blockchain

The bankrupt FTX sold its remaining 15 million shares in the artificial intelligence startup Anthropic at $30 per share, netting more than $450 million. FTX initially invested $500 million in Anthropic, and now has a total gain of $1.3 billion. However, the legal and…

OSF

@osf_rekt

Possible explanation for why BTC is not sending despite massive inflow number:

Big increase in BTC OI + big ETF inflow coinciding suggests to me tradfi ppl growing that basis trade (long ETF vs short futures).

BTC funding is back up to 20% atm so that makes sense --> this is a…

jay

@0xjaypeg

yea these guys have their bags packed lmao

NFT

Magic Eden Wallet

@MagicEdenWallet

Say hello to your new best friend.

The Magic Eden Mobile Wallet is now available for testing on iOS.

The first 2,000 users will be able to download & then you’ll still need a beta code.

Wen codes? Notis on

Download here: testflight.apple.com/join/j7sCYVZO

RTFKT

@RTFKT

2D
Who wants one

Luca Netz 🐧

@LucaNetz

Those who control the Gifs control the memes and those who control the memes control the world.

The Penguin has crossed 20b views on our gifs solidifying itself as an immutable part of internet culture.

Pudgy Penguins

Pudgy Penguins has hit 20B views on @GIPHY!

kook ☪️

@KookCapitalLLC

yuga labs made $124MM in revenue in 2022

but after expenses still managed to A NET LOSS FOR THE YEAR OF -$11MM

HOW???????

is @yugalabs the most incompetent organization in the history of human civilization???????????

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

Gaming

apix🎮

@apixtwts

VCs poured over $10b into crypto gaming over the last few years

but no one seems to be playing any crypto games

so where did all this money go and what happened with it? ↓↓↓

Vader

@VaderResearch

Largest web3 gaming funding rounds to date
Forte $725m (Series B)
Sorare $680m (Series B)
Limit Break $200m
Immutable $200m (Series C)
Sky Mavis $152m (Series B)
Mythical $150m (Series C)
Animoca $110m (Convertible)
Rally $57m (ICO)
Parallel $50m
Gunzilla $46m…

Ember Sword

@PlayEmberSword

Introducing $EMBER

Our in-game token that fuels your adventure through Thanabus

Use $EMBER to customise your characters and weapons with exclusive cosmetic items!

Check out our Economy Overview for more details embersword.com/blog/Economy-O…

#PlayEmberSword #Ember $EMBER

MON Protocol 🐉 $MON

@monprotocol

Launchpool for Aethir ($ATH) is now open on MON Protocol (Beta)

Commitment Period will end on 5 June, 10 AM UTC
LaunchPool: app.monprotocol.ai/launchpool

For more information visit our discord: discord.gg/thepixelmon

Join our X Spaces with Aethir Ecosystem Lead

nic carter

this NVDA rally has gone from "incredibly impressive" to actually scaring me a bit. not for AI safety reasons. I'll explain.

I'm lucky enough to be an early investor in @CoreWeave, one of the most incredible startup stories I've ever seen. one of the most interesting things…

Chief AI Officer

@chiefaioffice

New market maps covering the latest AI startups.

1. AI agents from Insight Partners

Artificial Superintelligence Alliance

@ASI_Alliance

The ASI token merge presents a unique opportunity to challenge and potentially outpace big centralized tech companies.
By leveraging the power of decentralization, the coming together of @Fetch_ai, @oceanprotocol & @SingularityNET aims to create a more equitable, transparent, and…

TIN | Sipher Odyssey & Ather Labs

@AskTinNguyen

Today, we’re thrilled to introduce GAIA, a modular creation engine for the AI age.

At its core, GAIA is a multiplayer creation engine designed to bring democratized Generative AI abilities to everyone, hence its name. It abstracts away the complexities of leveraging open-source…

Other

Dexerto

@Dexerto

IKEA is opening a virtual store in Roblox, where players can also work and earn €14.80/hour

Aditya Agarwal

@adityaag

I have been using Waymo every day for 2 weeks now and before that used Uber ~every day for 10+ years.

Some thoughts on this transition and on my own behavioral changes:

Barstool Sports

@barstoolsports

Highest Selling Michael Jordan Card Of All Time Sells For $2.9 MILLION buff.ly/453hmlT

DeeZe ⛳🏌️‍♂️

@DeeZe

Wake me up when a CSGO skin sells for more than the last alien punk

Jake Lucky

The most expensive skin in Counterstrike history was publicly sold this morning, a StatTrak Factory New AK-47 Blue Gem pattern 661

For over $1 million

= Sfermion Portfolio Company

Curated by @mopat1214 + @AndrewSteinwold

Sfermion's Collider #44

sfermions-collider@newsletter.paragraph.com (Mo Patel) — Wed, 22 May 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Sfermion is an investment firm focused on backing the founders building the metaverse.

Hello

Bit later than our usual cadence, but welcome to the 44th edition of Sfermion’s Collider where we highlight the latest & greatest news in the world of web3, gaming & entertainment, AR/VR, AI, macro, and more!

Weekly, we aim to drop a curated list of the most exciting stories & updates that we believe are enabling the emergence of the metaverse.

This edition covers industry news for the first two weeks of May. Consider it a nice reminder on things given how fast the tech space is progressing. Next week we will return to our usual cadence and cover the remainder of May. Hope you all enjoy!

Web3 Updates

Mirror and Paragraph () Join Forces to Elevate Onchain Publishing (link)

Uniswap Integrates Robinhood for Easier Crypto Buys (link)

MicroStrategy plans to launch decentralized ID solution: report (link)

SEC issues Robinhood Crypto with Wells Notice, citing alleged securities violations (link)

Robinhood CEO Decries 'Regulatory Onslaught' on Crypto, Vows to Fight SEC (link)

Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao sentenced to 4 months in prison (link)

U.S. SEC Asking for More Millions, Dozens of Lawyers to Beef Up Crypto Oversight (link)

SEC has been investigating ETH for over a year, new court filing shows (link)

FTX Files Consensus-Based Plan of Reorganization (link)

Bankruptcy judge signs off on $450M FTX-Voyager settlement (link)

Avalanche Integrates with Stripe for Crypto Onramping (link)

MoonPay Users Can Now Buy Crypto Via PayPal (link)

Xoom Enables PayPal USD as a Funding Option for Cross-Border Money Transfers (link)

Coinbase integrates Bitcoin’s Lightning Network in partnership with Lightspark (link)

Bitcoin surpasses one billion transactions processed, eight hundred weeks after launch (link)

Solana could flip Ethereum in transaction fees within a week: Report (link)

EigenLayer reveals plan for token airdrop with 15% allocation to ecosystem participants (link)

LayerZero Labs finalizes initial snapshot for potential airdrop (link)

OP Stack-based Mode to begin initial distribution of 550 million tokens today (link)

Web3 Watch: Base kicks off Onchain Summer 2.0 (link)

Franklin Templeton claims Coinbase-incubated Ethereum Layer 2 Base has 'hit a homerun' in SocialFi (link)

Former NFL Star Rob Gronkowski to Pay $1.9M to Settle Crypto Investor Suit (link)

Gaming Updates

PC team-based shooter, Nyan Heroes (), officially launches $NYAN on 5/21 with airdrops for in-game participants (link)

LinkedIn now has Wordle-style games you can play every day (link)

Microsoft Plans Mobile-Game Store, Vying With Apple, Google (link)

Google objects to Epic's proposed changes to Play Store policy (link)

Hasbro's $1 billion bet on internal game development (link)

Walmart and Roblox are teaming up to make virtual e-commerce a reality (link)

Avalanche Hoops Game ‘Rumble Kong League’ Nets Gatorade Deal (link)

CCP Games Announces Playtests for Project Awakening (link)

Redstone Network Launches to Power Fully On-Chain Ethereum Games (link)

Aethir and Magic Eden Partner to Revolutionize Web3 Gaming (link)

Solana Labs Teams Up with Google Cloud (link)

Mysten Labs Partners with Google Cloud to Enhance Sui Blockchain (link)

zkMe Partners with Ronin Chain to Revolutionize GameFi with Advanced KYC Solutions (link)

Heroes of Mavia Introduces Ruby Marketplace for In-Game NFT Trading (link)

E-PAL Enters Web3 Gaming with Innovative Platform (link)

AI Updates

Apple Intensifies Talks With OpenAI for iPhone Generative AI Features (link)

Amazon Commits $9 Billion to Double Singapore Cloud Push (link)

Microsoft will invest $2.2 billion in cloud and AI services in Malaysia (link)

Microsoft to Invest $1.7 Billion in Indonesia for AI, Cloud (link)

SoftBank Sells Off Vision Fund Assets as Son Pivots to AI, Chips (link)

Meet MAI-I: Microsoft Readies New AI Model to Compete with Google, OpenAI (link)

Microsoft Creates Top Secret Generative AI Service for US Spies (link)

Apple Is Developing AI Chips for Data Centers, Seeking Edge in Arms Race (link)

OpenAI says it’s building a tool to let content creators ‘opt out’ of AI training (link)

OpenAI Is Readying a Search Product to Rival Google, Perplexity (link)

Other Updates

Apple announces largest-ever $110 billion share buyback as iPhone sales drop 10% (link)

TikTok sues the US government over law that could ban the app (link)

Amazon Q1 Ad Revenue Leaps 24% to $11.8 Billion, Helped by Prime Video’s Addition of Commercials (link)

Sony and Apollo send letter expressing interest in $26 billion Paramount buyout as company mulls Skydance bid (link)

Meta loses another $3.8 billion on VR/AR (link)

Dave & Buster's to allow customers to bet on arcade games (link)

Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery to bundle streaming services (link)

Google is officially a $2 trillion company (link)

Churchill Downs Jumps Most Since November on Record Quarter (link)

Hyundai is spending close to $1B to keep self-driving startup Motional alive (link)

Google’s Payments to Apple Reached $20 Billion in 2022, Antitrust Court Documents Show (link)

Instacart, Uber Join Forces to Add Uber Eats to Instacart App (link)

Jack Dorsey departs Bluesky board (link)

Research & Interesting Reads

Galaxy | Crypto & Blockchain Venture Capital – Q1 2024 (link)

Blockworks | Compute DePINs: Paths to Adoption in an AI-Dominated Market (link)

Crypto x AI - Going Down the Rabbit Hole (link)

Archetype | Verifiable Compute: Scaling Trust with Cryptography (link)

ZachXBT | How Lazarus Group laundered $200M from 25+ crypto hacks to fiat from 2020–2023 (link)

Konvoy | Who Buys TikTok? (link)

Pantera | Investing in TON Network (link)

Binance | The Future of Bitcoin #2: Tokens (link)

The Average Screen Time and Usage by Country in 2024 (link)

a16z games | 5 Trends Driving the Future of VR Gaming (link)

Bankless | Why This Cycle is Cooked | DH + RSA (link)

0xsmac | Where Are We In The Cycle? (link)

Arthur Hayes | Mayday (link)

NFT Drops & Updates

Check out the latest NFT collection from Planet Atmos (), MKIV Exo: Genesis Edition (link)

Check out the recent Anichess () “Missing Orbs” Mint - Whisper of Chaos (10113 minted) and Riddle of Chaos (4963 minted) (link)

Donald Trump to spend day off from trial with NFT buyers (link)

AnimeCoin Launches ‘Gacha Grab’ Game With Ethereum NFT Collection Azuki (link)

Moonbirds Building 'Moonbirds Universe' (link)

Notable Raises

Web3 community-driven gaming ecosystem SlingShotDAO () completes $3M in financing, with Alphabit Fund participating (link)

Silicon Valley’s General Catalyst closes in on $6B fund for tech start-ups (link)

Self-driving startup Wayve just raised $1B from Nvidia, SoftBank, Microsoft and more (link)

AI startup Atlan raises $105M in funding at $750M valuation (link)

Hyde Park raises $98M to back Midwest and Toronto start-ups (link)

Sophon ZKSync hyperchain raises $60M in node sale (link)

DatologyAI raises $46M to streamline AI model training data diets (link)

Crypto Principal Trader Arbelos Markets Raises $28M Led by Dragonfly Capital (link)

OpenAI raises $15M for its Startup Fund. It invests in early-stage AI companies (link)

Thiel-Backed Cryptography Startup Lagrange Raises $13M (link)

Bladerite Game Developer Seeds Labs Raises $12M (link)

Kiosk raises $10M in funding round led by Electric Capital (link)

Galaxis Raises $10M, Doubling Down on Belief That NFTs Will Provide Real Value Everywhere (link)

Tokenized Asset Issuer Backed Raises $9.5M as Crypto's RWA Race Heats Up (link)

Altera raises $9M to develop AI for digital humans (link)

Botanix Labs raises $8.5M to build a Bitcoin-native DeFi ecosystem (link)

Owlto Finance Raises $8M in Strategic Funding Round (link)

Modular Liquidity Protocol Mitosis Secures $7M (link)

Bitcoin-native application platform Arch raises $7M led by Multicoin Capital (link)

Singapore-Based UXUY Secures $7M in Pre-A Funding (link)

X10, a crypto exchange founded by Revolut alumni raises $6.5M funding (link)

Arcium raises $5.5M in strategic round to develop 'confidential computing' network (link)

Web3 wine marketplace Baxus raises $5M from Multicoin Capital, Solana Ventures (link)

Haun Ventures leads $5M seed round in cross-chain governance platform Agora (link)

ZKM raises $5M ahead of Bitcoin-based Layer 2 launch (link)

Shadow War Raises $5M for Futuristic 5v5 Action Gaming (link)

Milkyway has raised $5M in seed rounds (link)

Airstack Announces $4M Seed Financing (link)

Web3 game startup GFAL raises $3.3M from Supercell and Mitch Lasky (link)

Iconic Arts raises $3.1M to create original properties for games and Hollywood (link)

Holograph Secures $3M to Expand Omnichain NFT Use in Web3 Gaming (link)

Blade Games Secures $2.4M In Seed Funding Round (link)

Ambient Raises $2M to Scale DePIN Globally (link)

Resonance Security secures $1.5M in pre-seed funding as cybersecurity industry gains steam (link)

Blade of God X Secures Multimillion-Dollar Investment for ARPG (link)

Mo & Andrew's Curated

Macro

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: Hong Kong spot #Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF trading officially live.

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: Europe's second-largest bank, BNP Paribas, buys BlackRock spot #Bitcoin ETF shares.

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: $438 billion asset manager Susquehanna discloses $1.3 billion #Bitcoin ETF portfolio.

Autism Capital 🧩

@AutismCapital

“I’m good with Crypto. If you’re for crypto you better vote for Trump.”

Franklin Templeton Digital Assets

Solana: Accelerated Adoption

Franklin Templeton Digital Assets

It's Base Season

Bitcoin Magazine

JUST IN: Former PayPal President David Marcus says #Bitcoin is “going to be the native currency of AI”

Radar🚨

@RadarHits

Legendary trader Michael Burry called the 2008 financial collapse 2 years in advance.

He gives talk on how why US government is running a Ponzi:
When the interest on your debt eclipses your tax income, your country is a Ponzi scheme

WATCH

matthew sigel, recovering CFA

VanEck's @MarketVector launches $MEMECOIN index, top 6 assets, 30% cap.
Warns potential customers: "These coins are intended for entertainment purposes"

Game of Trades

@GameofTrades_

This is extremely concerning

US government spending (inflation-adjusted) since 2020 now exceeds the combined spending of:

- World War I
- World War II
- 1970 to 1990

Web3

Phantom

@phantom

We hit a new milestone!

7 MILLION MONTHLY ACTIVE USERS

0xngmi

@0xngmi

Just launched a new way to check your address for airdrop allocations

1. Go to defillama.com/airdrops
2. Click "Check airdrops for address"
3. Input any address
4. We'll display EIGEN allocation + other airdrops

No need to sign anything with wallet or go through hoops anymore

Sandra

@sandraaleow

Pumpdotfun has silently generated ~$9.54M in fees over the last 30D

A lesson in there

Laura Shin

@laurashin

A16z Makes $90 Million Private Purchase of Optimism’s OP Token

.@a16z is betting on the future of Optimism — and specifically on its Ethereum L2 tech stack.
@michael_bodley reports

Read more: unchainedcrypto.com/a16z-makes-90-…

NFT

Persona

@Persona_Journey

Persona Platform is live! Dive into Timefall Valley and join our gaming community.

Earn points as you participate in the activities:

- Complete quests for points
- Share Persona or Unagi related content to get more points
- Accumulate points for a chance to get Capsules filled…

MOCA Coin

@MOCAFoundation

$MOCA Public Sale results now live

Sale Results
•⁠ ⁠Total Funds Committed: US$29.3M
•⁠ ⁠Total Funds Raised: US$5M
•⁠ Oversubscription based on available lots: Over 12x
•⁠ Total $MOCA Allocated: 126,984,127 $MOCA
•⁠ ⁠Price: US$0.03938
•⁠ Fully Diluted Value:…

Pudgy Penguins

We’re excited to launch the first 3rd party licensing deal on @OverpassIP, provided by @ocapgames.

Orange Cap Games is bringing 200 Pudgy Penguins to life for their upcoming trading card game.

Submit your Penguin below.

NFTfi Foundation

@NFTfiFoundation

The $NFTFI Airdrop Claim goes live tomorrow @ 12:30 UTC.

All smart contracts have been:

• Audited by @HalbornSecurity;
• Included in a bounty program with @immunefi where no incidents were discovered; and
• Whitelisted on @PocketUniverseZ transaction checker.

Lucky Trader

@LuckyTraderHQ

The Garden Awaits.

Azuki will release "Enter the Garden: The Waiting Man" tomorrow live on YouTube at 1:00 p.m. ET.

Gaming

Pirate Nation

@PirateNation

We're delighted to announce a long-term partnership with @HLV_XYZ on a variety of initiatives.

Jonah 🎮

GTM for web3 games high level

I use my own 10 step process for our clients but every client is custom. I would never reveal custom work as that’s unethical. But this shows the basic blueprint.

Step 0: chain discussions, token expert hires and contractors. nft strat markups…

Mark Nelson

@energybants

Telegraph: Microsoft reportedly planning "Stargate", a $100billion supercomputer to be powered by several nuclear plants

The era of the great uranium brains approaches.

Awni Hannun

@awnihannun

This is an important chart for LLMs. $/token for high quality LLMs will probably need to fall rapidly. @GroqInc leading the way.

Other

Jon Erlichman

@JonErlichman

2024 valuations:

Nvidia: $2.2 trillion
Intel: $132 billion

2009 valuations:

Intel: $90 billion
Nvidia: $5 billion

Watcher.Guru

Warren Buffett on paying taxes:

"If we send a check like we did last year... and if 800 other companies had done the same thing, no other person in the United States would have had to pay a dime in federal taxes."

Lyn Alden

@LynAldenContact

Here's an embedded version of the Broken Money video.

-An analysis of the past, present, and future of money, and how technology impacts it over time.

-How the current disequilibrium (transactions way faster than settlements) creates centralized and corrupted money clusters:

Lyn Alden

@LynAldenContact

= Sfermion Portfolio Company

Curated by @mopat1214 + @AndrewSteinwold

Sfermion's Collider #43

sfermions-collider@newsletter.paragraph.com (Mo Patel) — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Sfermion is an investment firm focused on backing the founders building the metaverse.

Hello

Welcome to the 43rd edition of Sfermion’s Collider where we highlight the latest & greatest news in the world of web3, gaming & entertainment, AR/VR, AI, macro/economy, and more!

Every two weeks, we aim to drop a curated list of the most exciting stories & updates that we believe are enabling the emergence of the metaverse.

Web3 Updates

After 6-year hiatus, Stripe to start taking crypto payments, starting with USDC stablecoin (link)

Block lets Square merchants convert a part of their daily sales to bitcoin (link)

Hong Kong's 'in-kind' spot bitcoin and ether ETFs to start trading April 30 (link)

Consensys Sues the SEC to Defend the U.S. Ethereum Community (link)

Morgan Stanley Explores Letting Brokers (~15,000) Recommend Bitcoin ETFs (link)

Franklin Templeton Upgrades $380M Tokenized Treasury Fund to Enable Peer-to-Peer Transfers (link)

Aptos Labs collaborates with Microsoft, Brevan Howard and SK Telecom to build out institutional platform Aptos Ascend (link)

EY Launches Blockchain Tool on Ethereum (link)

TikTok’s Move Into Web3 (link)

RFK Jr. wants to put the entire US budget on a blockchain (link)

Hedge Funds Are Succumbing to Mind-Boggling Returns of Memecoins (link)

Kraken Releases Own Crypto Wallet, Joining Competition With Coinbase, MetaMask (link)

ZKasino launch leads to widespread outrage as $33 million promised to investors is sent to Lido (link)

Mango Markets Attacker Guilty of Fraud Over $110 Million Exploit (link)

Two SEC Lawyers Resign Following Debt Box Sanctions Fiasco: Bloomberg (link)

SEC suggests $5.3 billion fine for Do Kwon, Terraform Labs (link)

Blockchain Association Sues SEC (link)

Binance Converts $1B of SAFU Reserves to USDC (link)

Tether brings USDT and gold stablecoins to the TON blockchain (link)

Telegram Plans to Transform Stickers and Emojis as NFTs on TON (link)

Binance Unveils Megadrop Platform Featuring Web3 Quests and Airdrops (link)

OKX Ventures Teams Up with OnePiece Labs, Merlin Chain and Franklin Templeton in Backing the Runes Incubator (link)

Worldcoin teases ‘World Chain’ layer-2 (link)

OKX launches new Layer 2 on mainnet, aims to bring 50 million users on-chain (link)

Ankr launches AI-focused Layer 1 blockchain Neura on public testnet (link)

Matrix One () introduces the world's first decentralized AI protocol for immersive on-chain characters, built on Solana (link)

Introducing GAL Staking: Unlock Access to Galxe () Earn and Governance (link)

AletheaAI () Launches Emotive AI Avatars on Coinbase Blockchain (link)

Ethereum Name Service integrates browser compatible .box web domains (link)

PayPal removes buyer and seller protections for NFTs (link)

IMF says Bitcoin has become necessary financial tool for preserving wealth amid financial instability (link)

Philippines SEC orders Apple and Google to remove Binance from app stores (link)

Gaming Updates

Epic execs say IP holders don't care about Fortnite, but they really want its ecosystem (link)

Fortnite removes item rarities, upsetting fans (link)

Roblox introducing new 'publishing advance' fee as it opens up creator marketplace (link)

Introducing Zentry: The Gaming Superlayer (link)

Xterio and BNB Reveal New L2 Blockchain (link)

Immutable () Launches The Main Quest, the Largest Ever Web3 Gaming Rewards Program (link)

Complexity Welcomes Adam “Spike” Rivera as Web3 Advisor (link)

Puffverse Leaves BNB for Ronin and Raises $3 Million (link)

Join The Machines Arena () Open Beta (link)

AI Updates

Apple Intensifies Talks With OpenAI for iPhone Generative AI Features (link)

Meta is testing an AI-powered search bar in Instagram (link)

DeepMind CEO Says Google Will Spend More Than $100 Billion on AI (link)

Samsung to Get Up to $6.4 Billion in US Grants for Chip Plants (link)

Micron Will Receive $6.1 Billion to Build Semiconductor Plants (link)

Meta says Llama 3 beats most other models, including Gemini (link)

Best Buy shares new generative AI strategy for customer support (link)

Nike, Vivienne Tam shift AI fashion revolution into high gear (link)

OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Other Tech Leaders to Serve on AI Safety Board (link)

Inside Big Tech's underground race to buy AI training data (link)

OpenAI Launches First Asian Office in Tokyo Amid Microsoft's Massive AI and Cloud Push in Japan (link)

Other Updates

US regulators seize troubled lender Republic First, sell it to Fulton Bank (link)

Tesla to cut 14,000 jobs as Elon Musk aims to make carmaker ‘lean and hungry’ (link)

Amazon Grows To Over 750,000 Robots As World's Second-Largest Private Employer Replaces Over 100,000 Humans (link)

FTC sues to block the $8.5 billion acquisition of Capri Holdings by Coach and Kate Spade’s parent company, Tapestry (link)

Business groups are fighting to keep your non-compete on the books (link)

A New Era for Mixed Reality - Meta Horizon OS Opens to third-party Developers (link)

Meta Wants to Bring Students as Young as 13 Into Metaverse (link)

Netflix Adds 9.3M Subscribers In Quarter, Growing Its Lead in Streaming (link)

Sundar Pichai fires 20 more employees for protesting Google's Israel cloud deal: 'Company not a place to debate politics (link)

New York Stock Exchange tests views on round-the-clock trading (link)

Apple pulls WhatsApp, Threads from China app store after Beijing order (link)

Apple’s Smartphone Sales Slump as China Rivals Rise (link)

Naval Ravikant’s Airchat is a social app built around talk, not text (link)

Drake Takes Aim at Kendrick Lamar With AI Tupac & Snoop Dogg Vocals on ‘Taylor Made Freestyle’ Diss Track (link)

Kim Kardashian's private equity firm hits fundraising hurdles (link)

China's bubble tea explosion has minted half-a-dozen billionaires (link)

Ghost Kitchens Are Disappearing, Squeezed by Demand and Complaints (link)

Elon Musk’s X Launches TV App as It Pushes Video Ambitions (link)

FIFA Said to Be Close to TV Deal With Apple for New Tournament (link)

The Next Winner of the World Chess Championship Could Be the Youngest Ever (link)

Research & Interesting Reads

HackVC | 10 Things to Consider When Preparing for your Token Generation Event (TGE) (link)

a16z crypto | 5 rules for token launches (link)

Big Brain Holdings | The Quantum Threat to Cryptography (link)

Placeholder | Is It Time To Move Beyond Solidity? (link)

The Only Safe Way to Store Crypto (link)

Reverie | Why The Winners Won (link)

Crypto Will 10x Internet UX (link)

Monad | Monad vs Rollups (link)

Naavik | The Rise of the Everything Game (link)

Konvoy | Gaming IPO Watch List (2024) (link)

NFT Drops & Updates

Adidas and STEPN () Unveil Exclusive NFT Collection to Transform Move-to-Earn Ecosystem (link)

Maison Margiela and The Fabricant () Present MetaTABI Collection (link)

Christie’s First Bitcoin Ordinals Auction Fetched Over $730K (link)

Louis Vuitton Bestows €7.9K Jacket by Pharrell to NFT Holders (link)

CryptoPunk Sells for $12.4 Million in Ethereum—One of the Biggest NFT Sales Ever (link)

Yuga Labs offloads 2 NFT games amid effort to ‘unshackle’ BAYC team (link)

Melania Trump Releases Mother’s Day Necklace with NFT (link)

Man City NFTs Snagged Under 5 Hours—Another Drop Incoming (link)

The Ultimate Guide to Bitcoin Puppets: All You Need to Know (link)

'Buy Bitcoin' Sign Sold for Over $1M at Auction (link)

Notable Raises

Anichess () Raises $1.8M Funding, co-led by Sfermion and Amber Group, to Expand Web3 Chess Platform (link)

Microsoft to invest $1.5B in UAE-based AI firm G42, takes minority stake (link)

Pantera Capital looks to raise $1B for new crypto fund V (link)

Seed-stage firm Eniac Ventures raises $220M across two funds (link)

Ramp raises another $150M co-led by Khosla and Founders Fund at a $7.65B valuation (link)

AI Startup Upstage Secures $72M for US, Asian Expansion (link)

Web3 Game Platform Iskra Raises $40M, Partners with Gate.io for Token Generation Event (link)

Movement Labs Raises $38M for Rollup Based on Facebook's Move Language (link)

Aligned Raises $34M To Grow DeFi and Web3 Infrastructure (link)

A Fully Aligned Round: $20M Series A Round with Hack VC as lead investor (link)

Liquid Restaking Protocol Puffer Raises $18M, Led by Brevan Howard, Electric Capital (link)

Turnkey Raises $15M Series A to Revolutionize the Crypto User Experience (link)

Shiba Inu raises $12M in token round for its new blockchain (link)

Avalon raises $10M to launch hybrid Web3 MMO (link)

Homium Raises $10M and Tokenizes Home Equity Loans on Avalanche (link)

Carv raises $10M Series A to help gamers monetize their data (link)

Web3 3D LBS game L3E7 completes $10M financing, led by SevenX Ventures and others (link)

Pantera Capital Invests $8M in InfiniGods Series A Funding (link)

Amex Ventures backs web3 loyalty firm Superlogic’s $7.6M funding (link)

Pantera Leads $7.5M Seed Round for Blast-Based DEX Platform Thruster (link)

DePIN project SendingNetwork raises $7.5M from Balaji Srinivasan and others (link)

Crypto Valley Exchange Raises $7M to Launch the Most Capital-Efficient Digital Asset Derivatives Trading Platform (link)

Adot, founded by ex-Googler, secures $6M total funding to build decentralized AI search (link

CoinFund and Distributed Global lead $5.5M seed round for decentralized AI firm Prime Intellect (link)

Laser Digital, Nomura Group lead $5M funding round for gaming firm Tevaera (link)

Only1 Secures $5M for Solana’s OnlyFans Clone (link)

Othentic Secures $4M Seed Round for Web3 Orchestration Layer (link)

Puffverse Raises $3M in Funding to Expand its NFT-Based Gaming Universe (link)

Bitcoin-Linked Stablecoin Firm OpenDelta Raises $2.5M (link)

Inference Labs Raises $2.3M in Pre-Seed Funding (link)

Ordinals Explorer Ord.io Nets $2M in Pre-Seed Round to Pioneer Next-Gen Bitcoin Services (link)

GEODNET concludes $2M investment round (link)

Runes DEX Secures $2M in Seed Investment to Pioneer AMM on Bitcoin (link)

Moso Secures $2M Investment: Shaping the Future of Online Shopping with Cryptocurrency Rewards (link)

Uncharted raises $1.7M strategic round to build the gamification layer of crypto (link)

Peter Thiel's Founders Fund takes a stake in crypto accelerator Alliance (link)

OKX Ventures Announces Strategic Investment in Privasea, a Data Infrastructure Platform Powered by DePIN and AI Technology (link)

Podcast & Media

Zima Red - Alexandre Turbide - Beatconnect: The Gamification of Music - 156

Doubl3Tap Ep 015 - Amitt Mahajan (Proof of Play)

Mo & Andrew's Curated

Macro

Jameson Lopp

@lopp

"Bitcoin is too complicated!"

Oh, you think you understand how the dollar works?

Brian Armstrong

1. LFG
2. Since when was EU bigger than US (I must have missed that)
3. Deng had the right idea, Xi went back to communism. Lucky us.
4. ⁠Japan shows us what happens when you hit debt to GDP of 250%

U.S. now doing its best to run the Japan experiment as fast as possible (debt…

Radar🚨

@RadarHits

JUST IN: Russia says it now has the right to confiscate all Western assets in Russia, worth more than $288 billion.

The US just passed a law to confiscate Russian assets and give them to Ukraine.

Web3

Watcher.Guru

BREAKING: #Bitcoin halving officially complete.

GCR

@GCRClassic

If you've been sidelined, believe this is a good opportunity to scale into high conviction tokens

If you're fully invested, just survive, hold your spot positions and do not capitulate

Someone once said, liquidations are a forced transfer of wealth from traders who need…

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: Crypto firm Consensys sues SEC and asks court to declare that Ethereum $ETH is not a security.

John Collison

@collision

Crypto is back. @Stripe will start supporting global stablecoin payments this summer. Transactions instantly settle on-chain and automatically convert to fiat. Join the waitlist stripe.com/use-cases/cryp… and watch the demo (h/t @Solana) from Sessions.

Udi | BIP-420 🐱

@udiWertheimer

introducing BIP-420: formal Bitcoin Improvement Proposal for OP_CAT

it’s a historic day!

today, after a long wait, the OP_CAT proposal formally received a BIP number. meet BIP-420!

BIP-420 enables covenants on bitcoin, allowing for smart contracts, secure bridges, on-chain…

Franklin Templeton Digital Assets

Runes – Bitcoin’s new Fungible Token Standard

Paolo Ardoino 🍐

@paoloardoino

GM

Tether's tokenisation platform will soon be available to everyone.
A masterpiece.
Fully non custodial.
Multi chain.
Multi asset type.
Super customizable.

+T

Google Cloud

@googlecloud

Now announcing our Web3 portal—the home for all things Web3 at Google Cloud → goo.gle/4b8VBmj

Experiment on testnet
Discover blockchain datasets & developer tools from Google Cloud and our partners
Learn how the Web3 Startup Program can help you build faster

Sébastien Derivaux

@SebVentures

The growth of usage in the Ethereum ecosystem is great to see.

Darren Lau

@Darrenlautf

Catching up on wat to check out
- BTC, Ordi, BRC & Runes
- ETH, Eigenlayer, LRTs
- Points farming + Pendle
- Ethena
- Memecoins
- blast, SOL and BASE eco
- Friendtech and Farcaster
- AI and TAO
- TON
- rwa / ond
- FJO - LBP Platform
- PURR - Hyperliquid memecoin?

Wat else

miles jennings

@milesjennings

Launching a token can be as easy as sending an email.

Unlocking their potential as a new digital primitive and bringing them to market is much harder.

I’ve worked with dozens of founders tackling this challenge and am now releasing a 3-part playbook written for everyone.

NFT

cygaar

@0xCygaar

A beginner's guide to Runes - the new protocol that will bring fungible tokens to Bitcoin at the halving :

Magic Eden 🪄

@MagicEden

April 23rd.

The simplest and most intuitive Runes platform.

The future of BTC is on Magic Eden.

Animoca Brands

@animocabrands

@animocabrands @Imaginary_Ones

We’ve partnered with Imaginary Ones, a #web3 entertainment and IP company, to enhance its web3 entertainment ecosystem, define its go-to market strategy, and more.
animocabrands.com/imaginary-ones…

Memeland ❤️ Memecoin

@Memeland

Introducing the premier project on @Stakeland!

Meet Runecoin (@rune_coin), a pioneering fungible token project on Bitcoin that uses the new Runes Protocol developed by Casey Rodarmor, the creator of Ordinals.

Farm Runecoin by completing quests or staking $MEME (@Memecoin) or…

Ignas | DeFi Research

@DefiIgnas

Share essential tools for Runes protocol.

I'll start:

• @btctoolpro - charts for BRC2/Rune tokens
• @runes_terminal - explorer, mint, and launchpad
• @rune_mine - Building Runes portfolio, multisig, indexer.
• @RunesMarketCap - list of Runes projects by MC, date, etc.
•…

Gaming

andrew chen

@andrewchen

yesterday we had big news-
a16z raised over $7B in new funds, including GAMES FUND TWO -- this is the sequel to our dedicated vehicle for the intersection of technology and gaming.

Many of you have questions-
why are we so focused on tech x gaming?
what kinds of startups do…

Planet Atmos

@Planet_Atmos

Planet Atmos is entering a new era.

An era of competition, rivalry, and innovation.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was Planet Atmos

We’ve been grinding since 2021. How it started, how it’s going, and what comes next ( ) - a

ZTX

@ZTXofficial

Introducing the ZTX Ecosystem chain

Using Arbitrum Orbit technology, we are building a dedicated blockchain for Q3 ’24 to better prepare for ZTX mobile app. This move enhances access to ~500 million lifetime users of our web2 platform ZEPETO

finance.yahoo.com/news/ztx-launc…

Jungle

@jungle_xyz

If You’re Reading This, You’re Still Early

Here’s The Alpha Leak You’ve Been Waiting For

Introducing: The Jungle Ecosystem

Luke Barwikowski 🚜

@whatslukedoing

Crossed 200k active VIP members today

kiet

@0xkapital_k

Imagine grinding THIRTY-FOUR MONTHS in your game.

You are number 1 in the rankings, number 1 in the world.

Every. Single. Day. Grinding.

The FIRST in the world to hit Level 300.

Then you quit, on stream in front of ~25k ppl.

-----

THIS is Player-Activism. This is an…

MyShell

@myshell_ai

Introducing MyShell Layer2

The First AI Consumer Layer.

We connect users, creators, and open-source AI model researchers, powered by @eigen_da & @Optimism, in partnership with @alt_layer.

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: Elon Musk says Tesla should be valued as an AI robotics company, not a car company.

Aravind Srinivas

@AravSrinivas

Excited to announce we've raised 62.7M$ at 1.04B$ valuation, led by Daniel Gross, along with Stan Druckenmiller, NVIDIA, Jeff Bezos, Tobi Lutke, Garry Tan, Andrej Karpathy, Dylan Field, Elad Gil, Nat Friedman, IVP, NEA, Jakob Uszkoreit, Naval Ravikant, Brad Gerstner, and Lip-Bu…

Byrne Hobart

@ByrneHobart

Not the most important part of the Dwarkesh/Zuck interview, but that's an interesting channel check right there.

Other

Tanay Jaipuria

@tanayj

People are making $70-80K per year selling restaurant reservations in NYC on the secondary market

Elon Musk

We should send rockets not at each other, but rather to the stars

Elon Musk

Trung Phan

@TrungTPhan

Interesting Telegram operating details in this interview with founder Pavel Durov:

— ~1 billion users
— Never ran an ad
— Only 30 full-time employees
— He’s the sole director, equity holder and product manager (works directly with every engineer and designer)
— No HR (he…

= Sfermion Portfolio Company

Curated by @mopat1214

Sfermion's Collider #42

sfermions-collider@newsletter.paragraph.com (Mo Patel) — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMT

Sfermion is an investment firm focused on backing the founders building the metaverse

gm 👋

gm, everyone! After a long six month hiatus, we are glad to welcome you all back with #42 of Sfermion’s Collider - where we highlight the latest & greatest news in the world of web3, gaming & entertainment, AR/VR, AI, macro, and more!

Every two weeks, we aim to drop a curated list of the most exciting stories & updates that we believe are enabling the emergence of the metaverse.

Web3 Updates

Uniswap receives a Wells Notice from the SEC, drops “Fighting for DeFi” (link, link)

HashKey finalizes infrastructure for spot bitcoin ETFs amid anticipated approval (link)

Coachella Launching Avalanche NFT Quests Game at Music Festival (link)

Coinbase to Integrate Bitcoin Lightning with Lightspark (link)

Google Cloud, Coinbase join EigenLayer as operators (link)

DeFi Firm 1inch Introduces Web3 Debit Card in Partnership With Mastercard and Baanx (link)

MetaMask now lets users check if they are eligible for airdrops and NFT claims (link)

Tether Strengthens Its Reserves with 8,889 Bitcoin (BTC) Acquisition (link)

Sony Bank to conduct a stablecoin trial on Polygon (link)

US PayPal customers will be able to use stablecoin for international payments (link)

Goldman Sachs named as authorized participant on BlackRock bitcoin ETF (link)

The SEC investigated NBA Top Shot developer Dapper Labs, but decided to close case in September (link)

Coinbase secures restricted dealer license in Canada, pushing expansion abroad amid SEC crackdown (link)

Crypto exchange monthly spot volume doubled in March, reaching nearly $2.5 trillion for first time since 2021 (link)

Syndicate announces Degen Chain (L3 on Base for $DEGEN) and “Deploy on Degen” Week with over 10M $DEGEN in grants (link)

a16z Crypto Launches Jolt zkVM (link)

Chainlink launches Transporter bridging app for moving crypto cross-chain (link)

Mocaverse and CoinList to co-launch MocaList, token launch platform exclusively for Mocaverse community (link)

Restaking protocol EigenLayer heads to Ethereum mainnet (link)

Tensor Foundation launches governance token $TNSR (link)

Introducing $NFTFI. Advancing NFT Finance, together (link)

Binance Ends Support for Bitcoin NFTs (link)

Bitcoin is suddenly cool again for VCs (link)

Gaming Updates

Roblox’s $35M Creator Fund to support short-form video content (link)

Disney Games expands leadership team to invest further in games (link)

Microsoft, NetEase to re-launch Warcraft and other games in China (link)

Introducing Immutable Nexus - The Ecosystem of Gaming Chains (link)

Web3 dev platform Mirror World launches first gaming rollup chain on Solana (link)

Solana Move-to-Earn Game 'Stepn' (💰) Launches $30 Million Airdrop (link)

Illuvium x Samsung: Bridging the Digital and Physical Worlds (link)

Mon Protocol (💰) Partners with Web3 Metaverse Platform ZTX (link)

Xterio and AltLayer Collaborate to Launch Gaming-Oriented Blockchain (link)

Introducing gemz Points: Unlocking the future of play and earn (link)

OpenSea Adds Support For Gaming Chain GUNZ (link)

Meet the Team Bringing AI Agents to Minecraft (link)

AI Updates

OpenAI and Meta ready new AI models capable of ‘reasoning’ (link)

Anthropic says its AI models are as persuasive as humans (link)

Nvidia, Google Expand Partnership With Nvidia Blackwell Coming to Google Cloud in 2025 (link)

Google’s new Arm-based CPU will challenge Microsoft and Amazon in the AI race (link)

US to award Samsung up to $6.6 billion chip subsidy for Texas expansion, sources say (link)

TSMC Gets $11.6 Billion in US Grants, Loans for Chip Plants (link)

Canada Unveils Billions for Artificial Intelligence (link)

Microsoft pitched OpenAI’s DALL-E as a battlefield tool for U.S. military (link)

Oracle partners with Palantir to jointly sell cloud and AI services (link)

OpenAI-backed Ghost Autonomy shuts down (link)

OpenAI undergoes significant restructuring, Sam Altman no longer controls Startup Fund (link)

Other Updates

Chase Bank to Let Advertisers Target Customers Based on Spending Data (link)

Intel discloses $7 billion operating loss for chipmaking unit (link)

Tiktok launches new rewards app to boost growth (link)

TikTok’s Instagram competitor likely to be named TikTok Notes (link)

LinkedIn moves in on TikTok's turf with video option (link)

Instagram overtakes TikTok in app downloads in race for new users (link)

Facebook’s new full-screen video player looks a lot like TikTok (link)

Google to destroy billions of private browsing records to settle lawsuit (link)

Google Settles for $5 Billion, to Destroy Data of 136 Million U.S. Users (link)

Google parent Alphabet weighs offer for HubSpot (link)

Tesla's bet on robotaxis is a long way from paying off (link)

Apple Explores Home Robotics as Potential ‘Next Big Thing’ After Car Fizzles (link)

Spotify Is Raising Prices Again in the U.S. and Some Overseas Markets (link)

Amazon cuts hundreds of jobs in cloud computing unit (link)

Microsoft and Quantinuum say they’ve ushered in the next era of quantum computing (link)

Research & Interesting Reads

Bitwise | Crypto Market Review (Q1 2024) (link)

Konvoy | Gaming Industry Report - Q1 2024 (link)

Galaxy Research | Exploring the Evolution and Growth of DeSoc Apps (link)

Reflexivity Research | Overview of Decentralized AI (link)

Vitalik.eth | Degen communism: the only correct political ideology (link)

Paul/Pantera | What Do You Meme? (link)

The year for Digital Fashion is 2024 (link)

Eigenlayer: The blackhole for Ethereum? (link)

Arthur Hayes | Heatwave (link)

OpenAI | Navigating the Challenges and Opportunities of Synthetic Voices (link)

Notable Raises

XION (💰), a consumer-focused blockchain from ‘BurntBanksy,’ announces $25M in Series A funding (link)

Today (💰) Raises $5M Seed for Web3 Social Simulation Game with AI NPCs, co-led by Sfermion and Big Brain Holdings (link)

Legitimate (💰) Raises $4.3M, led by Lemniscap, to Spearhead the Future of Phygital Retail Applications (link)

Paradigm seeks to raise up to $850M for new fund (link)

Bitkraft Ventures launches third gaming fund with $275M to invest (link)

Monad Hits 10K TPS & Raises $225M, led by Paradigm (link)

Social Commerce Platform Flip Raises $144M, Adds AI Advertising Engine (link)

Layer 1 blockchain developer Berachain raises $100M in Series B funding (link)

Popular YouTube channel Dude Perfect scores more than $100M investment (link)

Galaxy Digital to launch $100M fund for early-stage crypto companies (link)

Brevan Howard Digital, Galaxy Digital invest in crypto accelerator Alliance aiming to raise $100M for new fund (link)

Bitcoin miner manufacturer Auradine raises $80M Series B ahead of halving (link)

IoTeX Raises $50M from SNZ Capital and Foresight Ventures for DePIN (link)

Laton Ventures Launches $35M Global Gaming VC Fund (link)

Andreessen Horowitz to invest $30M in tech-fueled gaming startups (link)

Ritual has closed a strategic investment from Polychain to accelerate decentralized AI (announced a $25m Series A in Nov. 2023) (link)

Bitcoin Layer 2 Mezo Emerges From Stealth With $21M Raise Led by Pantera (link)

Ellipsis Labs Raises $20M Series A from Paradigm (link)

Van Eck heir to launch new USD stablecoin with $12M raise, led by Dragonfly (link)

Azuro raises $11M for Web3 prediction business (link)

Alpen Labs raises $10.6M led by Ribbit Capital to build a zk BTC L2 (link)

Modular Blockhain Sophon Secures $10M in Funding, led by Paper Ventures and Maven11, from Renowned Investors While Shrouded in Mystery (link)

DePIN Platform Uplink Raises $10M Led by Framework Ventures (link)

Gomble Games Raises $10M for Boosting Web3 Gaming Vision (link)

USA-based BORED SLOT raises $10M in funding, led by PlutusVC and LD Capital (link)

Hytopia raises $8M via Hychain node sale and nears beta launch (link)

Solana interoperability layer Zeus Network raises $8M token round at $100M valuation (link)

Raiinmaker Closes $7.5M Funding to Advance Decentralized AI (link)

Kiki World, a beauty brand that uses web3 for customer co-creation and ownership, raises $7M from a16z (link)

Lumoz yields $6M funds and closes its Series B round, at a valuation of $120M (link)

Sanctum Raises $6.1M In Seed Extension Round (link)

GPUnet Raises $5.25M in Series-A round (link)

Privasea Raises $5M to Pioneer Depin with FHEML Technology (link)

Sapien raises $5M for data labeling with AI applications (link)

Lil Snack raises $3.1M for snackable games built by devs with AI tools (link)

Tomo Raises $3.5M in Seed Funding Led by Polychain Capital, Announces Tomoji Launchpad and TomoID for a Revamped Social Wallet Experience (link)

JARS AI raises $3M to build interactive shows, led by Gradient Ventures (link)

Zulu Network (BTC L2) Raises $3M in Pre-Seed Funding (link)

Moongate Raises $2.7M Seed Round, Led by CMCC Global, to Develop a Modular Web3 Engagement Layer for Real-World Activations (link)

Zoth Raises $2.5M in Funding to Provide Sustainable RWA-Backed Yields (link)

OpenTrade Raises Over $1.5M, Led by Sino Global Capital, for Building Crypto Structured Financial Products (link)

Arrow Markets Announces Summer Seed Raise of $1.4M from Leading Web3 VCs (link)

AI-Powered Crypto App Sharpe AI Secures Seed Funding (link)

Mo & Andrew's Curated

Macro

hayden.eth 🦄

@haydenzadams

Today @Uniswap Labs received a Wells notice from the SEC.

I’m not surprised. Just annoyed, disappointed, and ready to fight.

I am confident that the products we offer are legal and that our work is on the right side of history. But it’s been clear for a while that rather than…

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: Donald Trump says when he wins the presidential election "you are all getting tax cuts" and a new "economic boom."

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: $4 trillion asset manager State Street says Federal Reserve will cut interest rates by 50 bps by June and 150 bps by end of 2024.

Web3

EigenLayer

@eigenlayer

Announcing: EigenLayer EigenDA Mainnet Launch

Casey

@rodarmor

ord 0.17.0, which includes the final implementation of runes, has been released!

It includes the hard-coded genesis rune, UNCOMMON•GOODS.

github.com

Release 0.17.0 · ordinals/ord

Added Allow pausing and resuming etchings (#3374 by raphjaph) Seed index with genesis rune (#3426 by casey) Add ord wallet batch command (#3401 by casey) Return effective content type in JSON API ...

Franklin Templeton Digital Assets

The Rise of Bitcoin Ordinals

Casey

@rodarmor

Runes were built for degens and memecoins, but the protocol is simple, efficient, and secure. It is a legitimate competitor to Taproot Assets and RGB.

The protocol is self contained and has no dependencies on ordinals or inscriptions, making it extremely simple.

Balances are…

Uniswap Labs 🦄

@Uniswap

Passed $1B in Uniswap volume on Base yesterday

DCF GOD

@dcfgod

from 0 to $2m weekly revs with no token emissions

real profits

@pumpdotfun winning memecoin season by being z picks + shovels

Circle

@circle

1/ We’re excited to announce our upcoming support for Web3 Services on @Solana!

Stablecoins like $USDC are creating a more open and inclusive financial system. We’re committed to enabling enterprises and builders with the tools needed to make USDC accessible to all.

MartyParty

@martypartymusic

So @BlackRock sent @OndoFinance $250m

Token Terminal

@tokenterminal

The daily tx count on @base is up from 500K to 3.1M over the past 30D, while the avg tx fee has come down from $1 to $0.2.

NFTs

Azuki

@Azuki

Enter The Garden

Episode 1 releases April 30th

doodles

a groundbreaking storytelling experience from Doodles x Pharrell Williams

coming summer 2024

ThreadGuy 👑

@notthreadguy

nfts on @monad_xyz

ThreadGuy 👑

@notthreadguy

i just accepted the biggest position of my life

feeling grateful, inspired, and like i’m going to contribute to a team that will change crypto forever

never been more excited to work on anything in my life

i’ve also never had an opportunity to work with a company that has a…

Mocaverse💼🪐

@MocaverseNFT

The MocaList returns

1+ year ago, tens of thousands joined MocaList, which marked the beginning of Mocaverse NFT

Today, the name has taken on a new meaning

Launching MocaList - a new co-branded token launchpad by Mocaverse x @CoinList

MocaList in a nutshell:

Curate…

OpenSea

@opensea

We're excited to announce that creators can now use ERC721-C from @limitbreak to set and enforce their own creator earnings on OpenSea.

What is ERC721-C? ERC721-C is a standard that enables creators to implement programmable and enforceable creator earnings on-chain. It also…

Gaming

Everyworld

@JoinEveryworld

Everyworld’s Season 1 Community Airdrop is built on @base, an L2 chain built in collaboration with @Optimism. It’s fast, low-cost, decentralized, and secure. Plus, Base is for builders. Here’s why Everyworld is beginning to build on Base…

Today - 🧱/🌿

1kx | Exploring the Design Space for Dynamic NFTs

TODAY is excited to announce its partnership with @HLV_XYZ, the advisors behind ApeCoin, Pixelmon, and Shrapnel.

We look forward to where this exciting partnership leads us as we build out the future of AI Gaming together

Immutable

@Immutable

Immutable is officially the infrastructure partner for @GAM3Sgg_

Millions of players will come to the Immutable ecosystem via GAM3S.GG’s discovery platform, content & growing community. Learn more about the partnership:

immutable.com/blog/gam3s-gg-…

Neopets

@Neopets

NeoPass is here!

We’re excited to announce that NeoPass—your all-access gateway to an enhanced Neopets experience—is now available to everyone! As we evolve, we're integrating our registration process into NeoPass.

Ready to dive in? Head to:
account.neopets.com

Keungz ❤️ WELL3

@keung

I'm delighted to share the exciting news of our exceptional success in the $WELL Public Sale! @well3official

We have set a new standard in web3:
Raised 10 million in just 1 minute.
Achieved 10,000 ETH ($35m) in 26 minutes.
Secured 15,236.8 ETH ($55m) within 24 hours.…

Binance

@binance

#Binance will list @opentensor $TAO with Seed Tag applied.

binance.com/en/support/ann…

NIM Network 🐒

@nim_network

Today, we are introducing a new economic framework for AI agents ownership. It is driven by new standards for AI agents, which can play, transact, and generate income. We are starting with a first-of-its-kind AI gaming experience, TITANS.

You can create your first AI player…

Holoworld AI

@HoloworldAI

In official partnership with @pudgypenguins, we've brought every Pudgy Penguin to life with AI!

Activate here: holoworldai.com/pudgypenguins

Now let's see your Pengu's new tricks

Andrew Kang

@Rewkang

In February, I made a $19M investment in @Figure_robot

It’s the largest venture check I’ve written and it’s also the most excited I’ve been about a world changing technological revolution since diving into Bitcoin/crypto

The human labor market is arguably the biggest in the…

Defi_Mochi

@defi_mochi

$NVDA is worth over $2.7 trillion

The entire decentralized compute sector is only worth $7b

This is by far the most obvious 100x opportunity in crypto. Here's every project you need to pay attention to in the decentralized compute category

0/6

💰 = Sfermion Portfolio Company

Curated by @mopat1214 + @AndrewSteinwold

Sfermion's Collider #41

sfermions-collider@newsletter.paragraph.com (Mo Patel) — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Sfermion is an investment firm focused on backing the founders building the metaverse

Hello 👋

Welcome to the 41st edition of Sfermion’s Collider where we highlight the latest & greatest news in the world of web3, gaming & entertainment, AR/VR, AI, macro, and more!

Weekly, we drop a curated list of the most exciting stories & updates that we believe are enabling the emergence of the metaverse.

Web3 Updates

UBS taps Ethereum to pilot tokenized money market fund (link)

SEC’s Motion to Appeal Loss in Ripple Case Is Denied (link)

Ether futures ETFs from ProShares, VanEck and others go live (link)

Crypto-friendly Rep. Patrick McHenry becomes speaker pro temp following House speaker oust (link)

Adidas and Moncler Collab Features AI 'Adventurers' and NFTs (link)

NFL Alumni Group partners with Aventus Network to help retired NFL players launch fan-focused web3 experiences (link)

Tokenization is “securitization done on steroids” — Franklin Templeton CEO (link)

IYK introduces the IYK platform for self-serve digi-physical experiences and asset creation (link)

OpenSea introduces OpenSea Studio, a one-stop shop for creators to launch and manage their projects (link)

Zora goes live with zero fee minting (link)

Flow looks to expand into the EVM (link)

Binance Hit With Class Action Lawsuit Over Alleged FTX Sabotage Claims (link)

BlockFi to move forward with Chapter 11 plan (link)

Sam Bankman-Fried considered paying Trump $5B not to run for office, Michael Lewis claims (link)

Is Amazon’s investment in Anthropic a win for FTX creditors? (link)

Jump Trading lost more than $200M in FTX collapse (link)

60 Minutes with Michael Lewis - The Rise and Fall of Sam Bankman-Fried (link)

RFK promises to end “White House war on Bitcoin” (link)

Chainalysis lays off 15% of staff (135 people), plans to focus on public sector (link)

Another Polygon exec departs (link)

Gaming Updates

South Korean gaming titan Wemade taps Chainlink for interoperable Web3 gaming ecosystem (link)

Animoca Brand Japan Partners with Drecom to Expand Web3 Gaming (link)

Line Next launches Sweet Monster Guardians Web3 game on Game Dosi (link)

Nitro Nation NFT Racing Game Hits iOS and Android (link)

Gamefam brings Barbie and her Dreamhouse to Roblox (link)

Elon Musk Livestreams Diablo IV on Twitter to Show Off Twitch-Like Feature (link)

Fortnite brings in-game age ratings to player-made content (link)

Epic is changing Unreal Engine’s pricing for non-game developers (link)

Nintendo Confirms Lego & Animal Crossing Collab (link)

Niantic launches first in-game 'rewarded AR' advertising collaboration in Pokémon Go (link)

What Resident Evil Village on iOS tells us about the future of AAA mobile game development (link)

Meta owns all four of the top ad networks for mobile games in Q2 2023 (link)

data.ai: State of the mobile market in Q3 2023 (link)

Gamalytic: 67% of games on Steam earned less than $5k (link)

Global VC deals declined in Q3 for the second quarter in a row, hitting 3-year lows (link)

AI Updates

National Security Agency is starting an artificial intelligence security center (link)

Tim Cook confirms Apple is researching ChatGPT-style AI (link)

OpenAI to Challenge Apple Watch (link)

OpenAI examines producing AI chips in-house (link)

Wikipedia explores AI-powered knowledge access with ChatGPT plugin (link)

Anthropic in Talks to Raise $2B From Google and Others Just Days After Amazon Investment (link)

Meta said it's been using your public Instagram photos and Facebook posts to train its AI (link)

Other Updates

Walt Disney Pictures VFX Workers Vote to Unionize With IATSE (link)

Health care workers (75K+) launch strike against Kaiser Permanente (link)

Krispy Kreme puts Insomnia Cookies brand up for sale as it doubles down on doughnuts (link)

TikTok to halt transactions on its app in Indonesia from Wednesday (link)

Research & Interesting Reads

Galaxy Digital | Bitcoin Inscriptions & Ordinals: A Maturing Ecosystem

Konvoy | Haptic Technology

Sequoia | AI’s $200B Question

Naavik | The Evolution of Hybridcasual

The Generalist | What do venture capitalists do?

GameDiscoverCo | Most PC games gross <$1,000: should we be worried?

Bloomberg | Airbnb Is Fundamentally Broken, Its CEO Says. He Plans to Fix It.

Yahoo Finance | Energy consumption 'to dramatically increase' because of AI

NFT Drops & Updates

Pudgy Penguins Debuts NFT Toys In Smyths Toys Stores Across The United Kingdom (link)

Adidas and Moncler Collab Features AI 'Adventurers' and NFTs (link)

Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri says he’s still bullish on NFTs (link)

Nike drops first physical sneaker for dotSWOOSH holders (link)

RTFKT releases details on Nike Dunk Genesis forging (link)

Diesel and Fossil Group announced the launch of Vert, a timepiece collection part of Diesel’s ongoing Metamorph project (link)

MoMA drops 15 artist-designed NFT postcards (link)

Starbucks launches Pumpkin Spice Latte as an NFT (link)

Costa Rica is funding coffee research through an NFT collection that is inspired by 12 of CATIE’s coffee varietals (link)

Marvel and Funko Ally to Laud Iron Man’s Heritage on VeVe (link)

Magic Eden introduces English Auctions for Ordinals (link)

Yuga Labs cuts employees for metaverse plan restructuring (link)

Proof reduces team size (link)

Notable Raises

Fountain (💰), brokerage for art on the blockchain, comes out of stealth with raise news (led by Collab+Currency + participation from Sfermion, 6529 Capital, Cozomo, etc) and product details (link)

Greylock secures $1B for its 17th fund amid launch of early-stage founders program (link)

CMCC Global Raises $100M for Hong Kong-Based Blockchain Companies (link)

Visa launches $100M venture fund for generative AI startups (link)

Deus X Capital launches with former Galaxy exec Tim Grant as CEO - Deus X claims to have amassed $1B in investment assets and capital. (link)

Andreessen Horowitz leads $24M Series A round for web3 restaurant loyalty app Blackbird (link)

TON raises 8-figure sum from MEXC to make Telegram a Web3 super-app (link)

Web3 social platform Phaver raises $7M in seed funding, led by Galileo (link)

Yuga Labs reveals a strategic investment into Hadean, spatial computing startup (link)

Studio Sai secures $7M in seed funding, led by Krafton, to develop its second title (link)

Sad Cat Studios raises $5M investment, led by GEM Capital investment (link)

GameFi platform NexGami raises $2M from Polygon Ventures, Fundamental Labs, and Ledger Capital. (link)

Paima Studios receives $1.4M grant from the Cardano to build Autonomous World infrastructure (link)

Mo & Andrew's Curated

Macro

Satoshi Nakamoto

@satoshi

Bitcoin is a predicate machine. Over the following months, we shall explore different aspects that were not explicitly contained within the white paper. These aspects are all parts of bitcoin, and are important. Some of these ideas were touched upon in the early years; now is…

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: Interim House Speaker Patrick McHenry orders Nancy Pelosi to vacate her Capitol office.

unusual_whales

BREAKING: The US House has voted to remove Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker

Documenting ₿itcoin 📄

Larry Fink is the CEO of BlackRock.

BlackRock is the largest money manager in the world with $9,000,000,000,000.

He says #bitcoin is “digital gold”

Whale

JUST IN:

Honda now accepts bitcoin and crypto for payments

Documenting ₿itcoin 📄

Growing tulips with #bitcoin mining.

This company in the Netherlands grows flowers using sustainable energy and the recycled warmth produced by computers.

Saam Motamedi

@saammotamedi

We at @GreylockVC are making two significant announcements today:

1. Greylock 17, a $1B fund dedicated to Pre-Seed, Seed and Series A investing

2. Greylock Edge, a new company-building program for progressing founders from inception to product-market fit

Read more

Web3

Whale

BREAKING:

Chainlink Secures Partnership With $670b Australia and New Zealand Banking Group.

Chris

@oyacaro

.@Solana 1.16 is here and it's INCREDIBLY FAST

Jonah 🎮

This is the coolest thing to happen in crypto this week and it’s not getting enough coverage. A content creator buys ordinals IP to build his coffee business.

One of the first IN THE WORLD to use Bitcoin native assets as IP

NFT

Refik Anadol

@refikanadol

Dear friends, I am deeply honored to be a part of the opening of The Sphere as the first artist in residence with legends U2 and Darren Aronofsky! I can’t wait to share more of many experiments on The Sphere.

Peter

@chefgoyardi

Next week

Box comes with 12 unique flavors.

nft now

@nftnow

JUST IN: Head of Instagram Adam @mosseri says he’s still bullish on NFTs

Here’s why

Erick / Snowfro / 🦩 / LAO / #️⃣ / 🔴

@ArtOnBlockchain

Happy October y'all!

In keeping with tradition I'll be depositing October secondary royalties (after taxes) from the Chromie Squiggle into an @endaomentdotorg donor advised fund in support of Texas based arts and education organizations .

Thank you for giving my family an…

IZUMO

@IZUMOofficial

[IZUMO Portal Online]

"Ready to onboard?"

Embark on the next phase of your IZUMO experience with #IZUMOPortal.
portal.izumo.com/signup

Gaming

Jake Lucky

Former YouTube Head of Gaming Fwiz gives his thoughts on what CS2 should add for their skins on the marketplace

Thoughts?

EVERSEED 🌱

@PlayEverseed

In gratitude to Rangers, so adept
Our game's playtest goals, together met
Alpha's chapter closes, another unfolds
With a new "alpha" tale that's yet to be told
A sneak peek we share, for what’s next in line
Building for Beta, where stars will shine

youtu.be/NP7njf4rrdw

Documenting ₿itcoin 📄

"AI can not crack bitcoin", says @ElonMusk

"We see no way for AI to subvert the fundamentals of mathematics. They can improve the efficiency of #bitcoin hashing algorithms and silicon, but not crack it."

Random

MrBeast

@MrBeast

When I had a few thousand subscribers I made a video predicting how many subscribers I’d have in 10 years and schedule it to manually go public in 10 years… that video goes live in two years from today

Disclose.tv

@disclosetv

NEW - Pakistan orders all illegal immigrants to leave the country within the next 28 days or face deportation by force — Interior minister

unusual_whales

BREKAING: Kevin O’Leary was paid $15.7 million for twenty service hours, twenty social posts and fifty autographs to promote FTX

Joe Pompliano

@JoePompliano

Advertising rates for the $2.3 billion MSG Sphere have been leaked.

• $450,000 for the day
• $650,000 for the week

Those prices include working with MSG's 300+ designers on the creative & they estimate 4.7 million daily impressions (300k in person & 4.4M on social).

Crazy.

unusual_whales

Konvoy | Virtual Characters and Live Streaming

BREAKING: Sam Bankman-Fried met with the prime minister of the Bahamas to discuss paying off the country's entire roughly $10 billion national debt, per BI.

💰 = Sfermion Portfolio Company

Curated by @mopat1214 + @AndrewSteinwold

Sfermion's Collider #40

sfermions-collider@newsletter.paragraph.com (Mo Patel) — Fri, 29 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Sfermion is an investment firm focused on backing the founders building the metaverse.

Hello 👋

Welcome to the 40th edition of Sfermion’s Collider where we highlight the latest & greatest news in the world of web3, gaming & entertainment, AR/VR, AI, macro, and more!

Weekly, we aim to drop a curated list of the most exciting stories & updates that we believe are enabling the emergence of the metaverse.

Web3 Updates

JPMorgan’s UK digital bank blocks customers from buying crypto (link)

MoneyGram unveils non-custodial wallet to bridge the worlds of crypto and fiat currency with USDC (link)

SEC delays BlackRock, Valkyrie spot bitcoin ETFs decision (link)

January bound: SEC sets decision date on Ark, 21Shares bitcoin ETF (link)

SEC pushes deadlines for ARK 21Shares, VanEck spot Ether ETF applications (link)

VanEck, Valkyrie prepare to offer exposure to ether futures in ETFs (link)

Invesco, Galaxy float latest spot ether ETF proposal (link)

Lawmakers urge SEC Chair Gensler to allow spot bitcoin ETFs 'immediately' (link)

Coinbase secures AML license from the Bank of Spain (link)

Kraken Crypto Exchange to Launch Stock Trading (link)

Hong Kong to issue guidance on tokenizing stocks ‘in near term' (link)

Paradigm Launches Policy Lab to double down on crypto policy pushing (link)

City of Buenos Aires launching blockchain-based digital ID service (link)

PayPal’s Patent Files Show Interest in NFTs and Layer-2s (link)

European Crypto Asset Manager CoinShares Starts US Hedge Fund Division (link)

MicroStrategy buys 5,445 additional bitcoins for $147M (link)

Texas is home to nearly 30% of all Bitcoin hash rate — Foundry (link)

North Korean Lazarus Group amasses over $40M in Bitcoin, data reveals (link)

Hackers steal $200M from crypto company Mixin Network (link)

OpenSea API Users Warned of Third-Party Security Breach (link)

Celestia opens airdrop for planned modular data availability network (link)

Arbitrum DAO treasury boosted by $57M in unclaimed airdrop tokens (link)

OpenSea acquires Mintdrop to boost creator/collector experience for drops (link)

Thirdweb introduces the Connect - the complete wallet toolkit (link)

Three Arrows Co-Founder Zhu Apprehended - 4 months in Prison (link)

Universal Pictures and Aptos Labs team up to offer a web3 fan experience for upcoming horror flick “The Exorcist: Believer.” (link)

Tottenham Hotspur taps Chiliz blockchain for Web3 fan token - first premier league team in 2 years to launch a fan token (link)

Gaming Updates

Epic lays off about 900 people, divests Bandcamp and SuperAwesome (link)

Epic Games asks the Supreme Court to hear its case against Apple’s App Store rules (link)

Minecraft Cracks down on Bitcoin Reward Servers, Creator Notch: 'Glad They're Cracking Down' (link)

SoftBank-backed Improbable slashes losses by 85%, says pivot to the metaverse has paid off (link)

Games are a big part of the Meta Quest 3 lineup (link)

Saudi Stakes a $50B+ claim in the gaming world - Nintendo, Activision, EA & more (link)

How Manga Productions is bringing manga, anime and games to the Middle East (link)

GameStop’s Billionaire Investor Ryan Cohen Takes Over as CEO (link)

Fortnite V-bucks are about to get more expensive (link)

Counter-Strike 2 is out now (link)

Eve Online gets an FPS module, expansions and mobile game (link)

OpenSea teases OpenSeaGG, streaming soon on Twitch 👀 (link)

Immutable (💰) hosts successful Passport conversion test with 7,000 players (link)

Yuga goes live with Legends of the Mara Game (link)

SoRare announces NBA Season: Game Week 1 releases on October 17th (link)

Champions Ascension released alpha build on the Epic Games Store (link)

Mojo Melee (💰) announced they will be releasing on iOS, and opening tester applications (link)

Ronin unveils the Ronin Name Service (RNS) (link)

72.5% of Major Video Game Studios Embracing Web3 Gaming (link)

King: Candy Crush Saga's revenue has surpassed the $20B mark (link)

Since launching in April, Photo Finish Live marketplace sales for horses have crossed $2,000,000! (link)

AI Updates

Amazon to invest up to $4B in AI startup Anthropic (link)

You can now prompt ChatGPT with pictures and voice commands (link)

Meta launches AI chatbots for Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp (link)

Spotify is going to clone podcasters’ voices — and translate them to other languages (link)

Snap partners with Microsoft on ads in its ‘My AI’ chatbot feature (link)

Palantir Wins $250M AI Deal With US Defense Department (link)

OpenAI Seeks $90B Valuation In Potential Sale Of Existing Shares (link)

OpenAI and Jony Ive in talks to raise $1B from SoftBank for AI device venture (link)

Getty Images Launches Commercially Safe Generative AI Offering (link)

Salesforce to acquire Airkit.ai, a low-code platform for building AI customer service agents (link)

Adobe’s Photoshop on the web launch includes its popular desktop AI tools (link)

Google is opening up its generative AI search experience to teenagers (link)

Microsoft is hiring a nuclear energy expert to help power its AI and cloud data centers (link)

Other Updates

Hollywood writers reach tentative deal with studios that would end strike (link)

JPMorgan will pay $75M to settle US Virgin Islands Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking claims (link)

Amazon’s introduction of advertising to Prime Video (link)

Elon Musk's Starlink Exceeds 2M Users, Doubling In Just Nine Months (link)

US Announces $2B Loan For Poland To Spend On Military (link)

OnlyFan's total number of creators have risen 47% to 3.2M and users rose 27% to 239M (link)

Meta’s smart glasses can take calls, play music, and livestream from your face (link)

X owner Elon Musk largely runs the social media giant from his iPhone, employees say (link)

Peloton shares soar on digital content, apparel partnership with Lululemon (link)

Elon Musk Wins US Space Force Contract for Starshield (link)

Jamie Dimon says India optimism is ‘completely justified’ (link)

World May Not Be Ready for U.S. Interest Rate at 7%, JPMorgan CEO Says (link)

Research & Interesting Reads

Naavik | What’s New with Mythical Games?

Sensor Tower | Top Mobile Games by Revenue & Downloads in August 2023

NFT Drops & Updates

Walmart to sell Pudgy Penguins toyline in 2,000 stores (link)

BAYC partners with BAPE for limited quantity physical collection at ApeFest Hong Kong (link)

Louis Vuitton lands on Discord - to expand its relationship with its digital community, including NFT holders, who will have the opportunity to weigh in on brand decision-making. (link)

Paris Hilton and RSTLSS’s Mare Bear Go Live with Drop (link)

VeeFriends Joins Mattel for Skeletor and Skilled Skeleton Alliance (link)

DRiP partners with GenoPets for digital pets drop next week (link)

The creator of Ordinals, Casey Rodarmor, drops proposal for a BRC-20 alternative called Runes (link)

'Hoofster' NFT-Backed Shoe Hits AVAVAV's Milan Fashion Week Runway (link)

The Fabricant (💰) and Cornerstone Land host Primal Rave immersive experience and mint (link)

Notable Raises

Kyber Knight’s $120M fund will invest in tech startups and games (link)

Uniswap Foundation targets $62M in additional funding - The foundation plans to issue $15 million per year in community grants to fund DeFi projects. (link)

AI chip company Kneron raises $49M to scale up its commercial efforts (link)

Creative UK to support devs and other creators with new £35M investment fund (link)

IYK Raises $16.8M, led by a16z, to Power Token-Enabled Fashion With NFTs (link)

Ethereum explorer Rated raises $12.89M, led by Archetype, to expand to other blockchains, including Polygon and Solana (link)

Genus AI Secures $11M Total Funding In Seed Round for Generative AI in E-Commerce (link)

Pixion Games, creators of Web3 F2P mobile ARPG x Base-Builder Fableborne, raise $7.8M to fuel development and game launch (link)

Omada raises $7.5M seed round, led by Felix Capital, for social prediction game for sports fans (link)

FhenixIO raises $7.5M round, led by Multicoin and ColliderVC, to pioneer on-chain FHE (Fully Homomorphic Encryption) to enable compliant, on-chain confidentiality (link)

Luda raises $7M in funding, led by Bitkraft Ventures and Compound, for AI training simulation (link)

Verisoul raises $3.25M, led by Bitkraft to help businesses conquer fake users (link)

Afference raises $1.5M, led by Konvoy, to develop wearable neural interface platform (link)

Mo & Andrew's Curated

The Metaverse is cool again! I think? Check out this epic photorealistic podcast between Lex Fridman and Mark Zuckerberg. Truly amazing tech:

Lex Fridman

@lexfridman

Here's my conversation with Mark Zuckerberg, his 3rd time on the podcast, but this time we talked in the Metaverse as photorealistic avatars. This was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. It really felt like we were talking in-person, but we were miles apart It's…

Macro

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: US Congressman slams SEC Chair Gary Gensler for attacking crypto.

DEGEN NEWS 🗞️

BREAKING: GARY GENSLER CONFIRMS THAT THE PURCHASE OF A @Pokemon CARD DOES NOT CONSTITUTE A SECURITY TRANSACTION, BUT STUMBLES WHEN ASKED ABOUT THE PURCHASE OF A TOKENIZED @Pokemon CARD

Documenting ₿itcoin 📄

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says,
"#Bitcoin is safe, stable, and conservative"

Documenting ₿itcoin 📄

U.S. Senator of Wyoming @SenLummis says, "I encourage people to buy, hold, and save #bitcoin for their retirement and future"

unusual_whales

BREAKING: Americans outside the wealthiest 20% of the country have run out of extra savings and now have less cash on hand than they did when the pandemic began, per Bloomberg.

DEGEN NEWS 🗞️

BREAKING: U.S. HOUSE LAWMAKERS FROM BOTH PARTIES SEND LETTER TO GARY GENSLER DEMANDING THAT THE SEC STOP DISCRIMINATING AGAINST SPOT $BTC ETPS AND APPROVE THEIR LISTINGS IMMEDIATELY

unusual_whales

The 30-year mortgage rate in the US is at 7.31%, the highest since December 2000.

MartyParty

@martypartymusic

The @federalreserve published a paper on tokenization.

They mention Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana. federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/f…

Web3

Whale

BREAKING:

Coinbase International Exchange has received regulatory approval

Whale

JUST IN:

PayPal Files Patent Application for NFT Transfer and Trading

blockchain tipsheet

@blockchaintpsht

.@brian_armstrong: “Hayden Adams of @Uniswap is an American hero. And I mean, that literally he is the kind of person that any country in the world would kill to have building the future of technology -and Elizabeth Warren called him a ‘shadowy super coder.’ He actually put that…

rpc mert | helius.dev

@0xMert_

"Solana is centralized because hardware requirements"

Reality: Solana has ~3k nodes which is only slightly less than the number of Ethereum nodes — but it's also 10,000x cheaper and has at least 100x more capacity...seems like a tradeoff worth considering.

"Ok but those nodes…

muneeb.btc

@muneeb

The single most important thing needed for the growth of Bitcoin is the emergence of high-quality Bitcoin L2s.

We need L2s that can do fast, cheap BTC transfers at high volumes. I should be able to send $100M in BTC over a L2 without thinking about the infra.

These L2s need to…

Code4rena

@code4rena

The biggest ever Code4rena audit is incoming, thanks to @zksync

Find a valid vulnerability and take home a slice of the $1.1M prize pool.

Get yourselves ready Wardens

Messari

@MessariCrypto

The amount of staked ETH has grown to 22% of total supply.

Sisyphus

@0xSisyphus

The speed at which futures ETF for ETH went from rumor to reality is impressive and suggests spot ETF for BTC is being delayed for political reasons (probably something to do with Binance, but idk. 4)

ChimpZoo 🇸🇦

@ThinkingBitmex

Just pulled some burn data from @rollbitcom etherscan burn wallet, and aggregated total burn by dollars spent

$8m worth of RLB has been burnt thus far in roughly 40 days

Pretty incredible when you think about it

Annualizing to around $70m/yr

NFTs

Pudgy Penguins

On this day, Web3 enters a Brave New World.

Pudgy Toys, with Pudgy World, are now available in 2,000 Walmarts in the USA.

NewJeans JAPAN OFFICIAL

@NewJeans_jp

[NewJeans Commentary]

多くのBunniesのみなさんにステージをお見せすることができて楽しかったです!! たくさんの応援のおかげでよりいいステージを披露できたと思います! また会いましょうねBunnies

#NewJeans
#Time_to_NewJeans
#NHK_MUSICEXPO

trevor.btc

@TO

ALPHA LEAK

The creator of Ordinals, Casey Rodarmor, dropped a proposal for a BRC-20 alternative called Runes just 27 mins ago.

I'm gonna go live on a spaces in a few mins to discuss this.

Still trying to understand exactly how this should work, but considering Casey has…

Gaming

Jake Lucky

CS2 has been live for 40 minutes and already made $40 million from case openings

Jake Lucky

Fortnite Pro Putrick has called out Fortnite after being disqualified from FNCS Copenhagen and being told he will not be receiving his $200,000 for winning an FNCS Major because he and his teammate are Russian

Jake Lucky

Epic Games have laid off 870 employees today across multiple departments, a whopping 16% of their workforce. Those laid off will receive 6 months severance

"For awhile now, we've been spending way more money than we earn, investing in the next evolution of Epic and Fortnite"

Dexerto

@Dexerto

Epic Games reportedly laid off the team behind Fall Guys, Mediatonic

Jake Lucky

COUNTER STRIKE 2 IS OFFICIALLY HERE

My Pet Hooligan

@mypethooligan

BREAKING: My Pet Hooligan has just been featured on the biggest gaming publication in the world - IGN, with over 250m monthly users! This is HUGE!

Massive shout out to @IGN for covering our trailers!

Ronin

@Ronin_Network

1/ Ronin Name Service (RNS) is coming to Ronin! Soon.

RNS is more than a human-readable naming system for Ronin addresses: it’s a pillar of your Ronin identity.

Why RNS?

Pixel Vault

@pixelvault_

We’ve crunched the numbers from our first week of on-chain testing:

35 Playtesters
10,188 Battles
Over 300 Hours Played
Avg. 8.5 Hours Played Per Playtester

Next week we’ll kick it up a notch with @inhabitants_ and @foundersdao

Photo Finish™ LIVE 🌹 🐎 Virtual Horse Racing

@photofinishgame

Photo Finish™ Marketplace Milestone

Since launch in April, players have acquired horses via our in-game marketplace for a combined sales price exceeding $2,000,000

ALL fees collected are returned to the game's ecosystem until May 2024

signup.photofinish.live

Classy Games

@classygames_

The part I find most hilarious is Web 2 Gamers

That don't realize that a good amount of CSGO is on-chain

CSGO is a Web 3 Game.

Gamers in disbelief

A ZEUS

@0x_zeus

South Korea's Biggest Mobile Game
Company to Release Metaverse project

Here's What We Know about Netmarble's
@METAWORLD_GC :

(0/9)

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: OpenAI's ChatGPT can now browse the internet and is no longer limited to data before September 2021.

Brian Armstrong 🛡️

Count me as someone who believes AI should not be regulated

We need to make progress on it as fast as possible for many reasons (including national security). And the track record on regulation is that it has unintended consequences and kills competition/innovation, despite best…

unusual_whales

Hollywood studios can train AI ‘models’ on writers’ work under the new tentative deal, per WSJ.

Other

Collin Rugg

@CollinRugg

JUST IN: New York City is gearing up to pay over $1,000,000,000 on just hotels over the next 3 years to house illegal immigrants.

Good! That’s what happens when you call yourself a “Sanctuary City.”

But that’s just the hotel costs. NYC Mayor Eric Adams estimates the total cost…

unusual_whales

Gen Z falls for online scams more than their boomer grandparents do, per Vox.

unusual_whales

Paradigm | The Casino on Mars

Microsoft, $MSFT, discussed selling its Bing search engine to Apple, $AAPL, around 2020, a deal that would have replaced Google, $GOOGL, as the default option on devices, per Bloomberg.

💰 = Sfermion Portfolio Company

Curated by @mopat1214 + @AndrewSteinwold

Sfermion's Collider #39

sfermions-collider@newsletter.paragraph.com (Mo Patel) — Fri, 22 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Sfermion is an investment firm focused on backing the founders building the metaverse.

Hello 👋

Welcome to the 39th edition of Sfermion’s Collider where we highlight the latest & greatest news in the world of web3, gaming & entertainment, AR/VR, AI, macro, and more!

Weekly, we aim to drop a curated list of the most exciting stories & updates that we believe are enabling the emergence of the metaverse.

Web3 Updates

Citigroup Launches Digital Asset Solutions for Institutional Clients (link)

Busan, South Korea's second largest city, to build urban blockchain and digital asset exchange, and raise for a 100 billion won (75 million USD) blockchain fund (link)

PayPal Stablecoin ‘PYUSD’ is Now Available on Venmo (link)

Optimism announces new $26M airdrop to over 31,000 addresses (link)

Optimism is selling 116M of OP tokens ($162.4M) in a private sale split among seven purchasers with a two year lock-up (link)

Grayscale Investments files for new ether futures ETF (link)

Aptos Foundation and Flowcarbon partner to deliver high-quality carbon removal credits issued and retired natively on Aptos (link)

Animoca Brands and Honda Unveil NFT Strategy for F1 Events (link)

Cygaar, prominent crypto influencer and engineer, announces Frame Network - an NFT-focused L2 for creators and collectors (link)

Injective, has released the testnet of its inEVM Layer 2 rollup solution in partnership with Caldera. This allows Ethereum applications to run natively on the network. (link)

Eclipse Launches Ethereum Layer-2 Running on the Solana Virtual Machine (link)

Canto to Migrate to a ZK L2 Powered by Polygon Chain Development Kit (CDK) (link)

Polygon Labs proposes facilitating Celo's migration to Ethereum Layer 2 with CDK (link)

Vivek Ramaswamy Is Drafting a 'Crypto Policy Framework' (link)

House Committee Passes Bill to Ban FED from Creating a CBDC (link)

SEC embroiled in court cases; Hester Peirce says crypto firms shouldn’t give up on US (link)

Bybit suspends services in the UK after CEO Zhou said exit was likely (link)

South Koreans Hold $99B of Digital Assets Overseas: Tax Service (link)

India ranks second in global cryptocurrency transaction volume, Chainalysis says (link)

Andreessen-Backed Fintech Eco App ‘Doubles Down’ On Non-Custodial Crypto (link)

OpenSea introduces Creator Studio, a new hub (launching soon) that will house expansive tools for creating, managing, and analyzing projects (link)

Nansen third-party security breach exposes 6.8% of user emails and some blockchain addresses (link)

Quivr (💰) Launches Digital Identity Badges as NFTs on Solana (link)

South Korea's Dreamus Debuts Avalanche NFT Tickets for Events, K-Pop Concerts (link)

Rainbow wallet introduces Rainbow Extension - Available today for Chrome, Arc, Edge, and Brave (link)

Consensys to sunset Truffle and Ganache developer tools (link)

Stanford University plans to return millions of dollars received from FTX: Bloomberg (link)

25-year old video shows Bitcoin pioneer Hal Finney talking zero-knowledge proofs (link)

Gaming Updates

FTC permits Fortnite players to get $245M in refunds for in-game purchases (link)

UK preliminarily approves Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard (link)

A 4% cap and self-reported data: Inside the rollback of the Unity Runtime Fee (link)

Walmart plans to expand its commercial strategy in the metaverse (link)

Apple to allow mobile developers region-specific pre-orders of their games (link)

South Korean Mobile Developer NHN Is Building Crypto Games on Sui (link)

Korean Gaming Giant, Neowiz, to Build on Avalanche (link)

Major League Baseball, via Improbable, Is Hosting Its First Live Game in a Virtual Stadium (link)

Meta’s Horizon Worlds launches on mobile and web in early access (link)

Roblox is rolling out in-experience subscriptions, but you can’t buy them yet (link)

Yuga expands technical and creative partnerships for Otherside support with new partnerships with Hadean, AccelByte, Bad Rhino Studios, and Faraway (link)

Nefta (💰) and XPLA Partner to Superpower Web3 Gaming (link)

Shrapnel (💰) Unveils GameBridge, A Developer Platform For Seamlessly Onboarding Web3 Features Into Games (link)

Shrapnel (💰) is now live (for wishlist) exclusively on Epic Games Store (link)

Sharbound (💰) hits 40,000 Pre-Registered Players and 1,000 Played at Alpha (link)

Mighty Action Heroes (💰) Releases Mighty Road Update (link)

Final Two Weeks of Everseed (💰) Alpha (link)

Immutable (💰) and Auto Legends (ex-Riot & EA) form partnership to build car-racing game with top car manufacturer licenses signed (link)

Sidus Heroes (💰) and LayerZero form partnership for cross-chain access (link)

Hawku, gaming NFT marketplace, officially shuts down (link)

Pre-register for Hytopia Beta and Get a Lootbox (link)

Xsolla launches Mall, a new alternative purchase platform (link)

My Pet Hooligan kickstarts 12-month collaboration with Amazon Prime Gaming for exclusive digital bundle drops on Prime Gaming every month (link)

My Pet Hooligan Public Early Access is out now, exclusively on the Epic Games Store! (link)

Blocklords soft launch goes live on Epic Games Store! (link)

Decentralized global sports and media group, Veloce ($VEXT), and LayerZero form partnership for cross-chain access (link)

Animoca generated $402M in 2022, up 32% (link)

Newzoo: PC and Console Market in 2023 (link)

AI Updates

Google and the Department of Defense are building an AI-powered microscope to help doctors spot cancer (link)

DeepMind’s New AI Can Predict Genetic Diseases (link)

OpenAI’s Dall-E 3 Is an Art Generator Powered by ChatGPT (link)

OpenAI Aims to Release “Multi-Modal” Model Ahead of Google’s Gemini (link)

YouTube rolls out four new AI tools for creators (link)

TikTok debuts new tools and technology to label AI content (link)

SoftBank Mulls Big Investment in OpenAI Following ARM IPO (link)

Game of Thrones Creator George R.R. Martin Joins Lawsuit Against OpenAI (link)

Other Updates

Instacart Prices IPO at $30 a Share, at Top End of Expectations (link)

Katy Perry sells music catalog for $225M (link)

DOJ investigates Elon Musk perks at Tesla (link)

WhatsApp users in India can now pay businesses with credit card, other UPI apps (link)

WWE’s ‘SmackDown’ to return to NBCUniversal’s USA Network in more than $1.4B deal (link)

Research & Interesting Reads

Not Boring | Capitalism Onchained

Crypto Trader Digest | Are We There Yet?

NotCryptoBro's Memo | Half-life of Web3 Token Projects

Engineer’s Codex | 7 simple habits of the top 1% of engineers

Konvoy | A Fast Growing Market of High Spenders

The GameDiscoverCo | Fortnite Creative 2.0: battle stories from shipping UGC!

Brutally Honest | 11 tips for killer User Acquisition ops (Q3 version)

SuperJoost Playlist | Deep dive on Xbox leak

GameDevReports | Newzoo: PC and Console Market in 2023

NFT Drops & Updates

Mercedes announces adjusted mint date for “The Era of Luxury” of Mercedes-Benz NXT Icons: Tuesday, September 26th (link)

Zynga’s Sugartown releases more details on Oras PFP collection and chapter 0 utility (link)

Pirate Nation - Mystery Chest Free Mint on Manifold post $33M raise announcement (link)

Yuga Labs & NFT NOW Present CryptoPunks Docuseries (link)

Courtyard Sells NFTs on Polygon for Pokemon Cards, Sells Out Quickly (link)

Paris Saint-Germain Is Giving Away Free AI-Generated NFT Posters (link)

Luca and Pudgy Penguins prepare to enter a “Brave New World”, opens personal spaces/podcast schedule to public (link)

The Ultimate Guide To FEWOWORLD - Fewos mint kicks off Sept. 25th (link)

y00ts is transitioning into a lifestyle brand (link)

RSTLSS reveals Mare Bears project and artwork (link)

Cool Cats will be featured in this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade (link)

Notable Raises

$500B Nomura’s Digital Asset Subsidiary Launches Bitcoin Fund for Institutions (link)

Crypto VC Blockchain Capital scores $580M for two new funds (link)

AI Startup Writer Raises $100M, led by Iconiq Growth, to Pen Corporate Content (link)

Pryon raises $100M, led by Thomas Tull’s U.S. Innovative Technology Fund, to index and analyze enterprise data (link)

Alchemy Pay co-founder launches $60M VC fund with former Lightspeed, Harmony execs as partners (link)

Levelpath Secures $44.5M in Funding, led by Benchmark and Redvoint Ventures, for AI-Powered Procurement Platform (link)

FarmVille co-creator's startup, Proof of Play, raises $33M from a16z crypto and others for on-chain games and infrastructure development (link)

Bastion has raised $25M in a funding round led by a16z crypto to helps companies seamlessly integrate web3 infrastructure, alongside running deep user analytics (link)

Eloelo, Social gaming and livestreaming platform, raises $22M in funding, led by Courtside Ventures and Griffin Gaming Partners, to expand entertainment app (link)

Blockchain tech firm Jiritsu secures $10.2M, led by gumi Cryptos Capital, to develop verifiable computing (link)

Deduce Raises $9M, led by Freestyle Capital, to Tackle AI-Generated Identity Fraud (link)

Series AI raises $7.9M in funding, led by a16z, for AI-powered game-building tools (link)

Hybrid crypto exchange GRVT raised $7.1M in funding at a $39M valuation, co-led by Matrix Partners and Delphi Digital (link)

Essential raises $5.15M in seed funding, led by Maven11, to support development of intent-based infrastructure and tooling (link)

Spectarium, building cross-platform action RPGs, raises 5M euro seed round led by BITKRAFT Ventures with participation from Delphi Digital and Framework Ventures (link)

Freatic emerges from stealth with a $3.6M seed round led by a16z crypto to leverage information markets (link)

Orb has raised $2.3M, from Superscrypt and others, to build an everyday app for web3 social (link)

Billionaire venture capitalist Tim Draper initiates new crypto accelerator despite frosty market environment (link)

Mo & Andrew's Curated

Macro

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: US Congressman introduces plan to ban Congress & their spouses from trading stocks.

unusual_whales

Want to see a crazy trade?

Yesterday, someone OPENED $SPLK 127 calls, for $22,000, expiring tomorrow.

Then today Cisco Systems $CSCO announced acquiring Splunk for $28B, $SPLK up 20%.

The contracts were $0.04 yesterday, now $18.30.

They exited today for a 45,650% return...

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: Federal Reserve says they don't see a recession until at least 2027.

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: Sam Bankman-Fried's parents received $16.8 million in stolen customer funds and $16.4 million worth of property in the Bahamas.

Robert Kiyosaki

@theRealKiyosaki

I am constantly asked “What price will gold, silver, or Bitcoin be in 2025. My reply is that is a silly question. More important question is how many gold, silver, Bitcoins do you have TODAY? Gold, silver, Bitcoin are bargains today… but not tommow. America is broke. Buy GSBC…

Web3

Permissionless II

@Permissionless

Why are we here?

Permissionless II opener from @ErikVoorhees that got an entire crypto conference on their feet

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: Japan's largest investment bank Nomura launches #Bitcoin fund for institutional investors.

Nicolas Julia

@ni2las

Mike Dudas

@mdudas

how it started how it’s going

Hasu⚡️🤖

@hasufl

Because I was struggling with the FTX claims process, I put together some information and want to share in case it may be useful to others

jay

@0xjaypeg

A *successful* web2 start up takes upwards of 3 yrs to reach 10M+ cumulative revenue milestone with a significant employee base

FriendTech has just breached 11 mm USD in protocol fees within *39* days, with *3 employees*

Hate all you want but there is no denying their success

Tanaka (💙,🧡)

@Tanaka_L2

Real World Assets (#RWAs) recently surpassed $3 billion in value and have become the primary focus in the #Token2049.

I believe that the #RWA sector will reach a value of $10 billion, providing a massive return of 20-50X for early investors.

Here is my list of RWA projects …

Tanaka (💙,🧡)

@Tanaka_L2

Some prominent trends mentioned at #token2049 . We should to keep an eye on it. #TOKEN2049 is the premier crypto event, organised annually in Singapore, where founders and executives of the leading Web3 companies and projects share their view on the industry

1. Cyber Nation…

Mastercard News

@MastercardNews

We’re simplifying how we talk about blockchain. Our network is connecting ecosystems across the digital assets ecosystem to power new and relevant solutions to make the industry accessible for all. Learn more: mastercard.com/news/perspecti…

Start Path Blockchain and Digital Assets…

Metav3rse

@themetav3rse

BR3AKING: Within the next 10 years, Ethereum could reach a $20 trillion dollar market cap which would equate to a price of around $170,000 per ETH as well as $1,000,000 per Bitcoin- according to a recent report by Cathy Woods’ ARK Invest

Nathann.eth

@Nathan0xx

. @a16zcrypto announced that applications for Spring 2024 Crypto Startup School are now open until October 20, 2023
Crypto Startup School (CSS) is twelve-week accelerator program for early-stage companies, providing expert guidance, capital, and resources tailored for crypto…

Gaming

Jake Lucky

TSM has sold their LCS spot for ~$10 million to Shopify and has left NA League of Legends

And Moist Esports is now sharing a Valorant roster with Shopify

Wild day for esports

Othersidemeta

Legends of the Mara Season 1 open beta goes live Sept. 26. During S1, hatch Mara. Koda holders, get a head start on farming Fragments and hunting Shattered. Beta loot will be mintable at the end of each season and include items for LoTM’s expanding gameplay.

@yoitsOG

"Web3 games are too tough to get into"

Not anymore.

Here are 10 games you can dive into on @Steam, with gameplay

MeeZee

@MeeZeesGames

Unveiling Zynga's SugarTown: MeeZee Decodes the Alpha from Ep. 1 Spaces:

1/ Oras Dynamics: Holding multiple Oras offers an advantage. However, there's no need for repetitive actions for each NFT.

2/ Zygna & LiveOps: Zygna's expertise is LiveOps. SugarTown is adopting the…

Shardbound

@shardbound_game

40,000 PRE-REGISTERED and 1000 PLAYED AT ALPHA...

We can see a future where all 40,000 get to play, can you?

Nathann.eth

@Nathan0xx

Exciting News : Mythical Games will launch the mobile version of the Web3 game @PlayBlankos .Previously, @playmythical had released NFL Rivals on iOS and Android, which received 2.5 million downloads.

NFTs

Bored Ape Yacht Club

For the first time, Bored Ape Yacht Club will be open to visitors for an interactive experience for creators, collectors, and the crypto-curious at the “Yacht Club Open House,” on November 5th, 2023 in Hong Kong

openhouse.boredapeyachtclub.com

Tix on-sale Sept. 18, 2023 at 9:00 AM EST

Mungo

@mung0x

Probably nothing…

little fish

@AdamMetaverse

When the markets are down its time to load.

After investing in @dop_org
I've decided to also buy a blue chip #NFT, the zombie punk by @cryptopunksnfts #3609

420 ETH may seem a lot but i believe that in the long term this is a real gem.

Leonidas

@LeonidasNFT

BREAKING: This fully on-chain image of a rock just sold for 3 BTC ($81,350)

Ordinals are dead.

Long live Ordinals.

→ ord.io/180

FEWOCiOUS

@fewocious

I’ve been working on Fewos for over a year. With so many awesome people and so much passion. And it’s coming NEXT WEEK!! I can’t believe it. I’m so excited. Make sure to save this graphic with all the details!!! I can’t wait for Fewos to be in the world!!!

ZAGABOND.ETH

@ZAGABOND

Azuki - how would you feel about minting and collecting Lore Drops like the "Origin of the Garden" as tokens? The idea is to encapsulate key moments and artwork from the expanding Azuki universe into collectible tokens. As the story unfolds through different mediums, these tokens…

Azuki

@Azuki

Origin of the Garden

Sam Altman

@sama

also, the video we made for dalle 3 is SO CUTE:

GURGAVIN

@gurgavin

JUST IN : NVIDIA CEO JUST SOLD ANOTHER CHUNK OF NVIDIA SHARES

THIS IS HIS FOURTH SELL IN THE LAST FEW DAYS

HE HAS NOW SOLD $120 MILLION DOLLARS OF NVIDIA SHARES IN THE LAST FEW DAYS

$NVDA

Other

Joe Pompliano

@JoePompliano

Deion Sanders recently launched a line of custom sunglasses with Blenders Eyewear.

So when the Colorado St. head coach commented on him wearing them during interviews, Sanders took advantage.

Coach Prime handed them out to the entire team, which went viral on social media. And…

unusual_whales

45% of Grindr, $GRND, employees resigned after the company started enforcing a return-to-office mandate per the LA Times.

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: Elon Musk's SpaceX sues the US Government.

unusual_whales

BREAKING: Microsoft, $MSFT, wanted to acquire Nintendo, per leaked emails seen by Forbes.

unusual_whales

Pantera Capital | Emerging Catalysts in Crypto

A record 73.5 million Americans plan to wager on the NFL, according to the American Gaming Association.

💰 = Sfermion Portfolio Company

Curated by @mopat1214 + @AndrewSteinwold

Sfermion's Collider #38

sfermions-collider@newsletter.paragraph.com (Mo Patel) — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Sfermion is an investment firm focused on backing the founders building the metaverse.

Hello 👋

Welcome to the 38th edition of Sfermion’s Collider where we highlight the latest & greatest news in the world of web3, gaming & entertainment, AR/VR, AI, macro, and more!

Weekly, we aim to drop a curated list of the most exciting stories & updates that we believe are enabling the emergence of the metaverse.

Web3 Updates

SEC charges NFT project Stoner Cats (Ashton Kutcher & Mila Kunis) with conducting an unregistered offering of NFTs that brought in $8M from investors. Team was fined $1M and forced to delete all tokens (link)

Franklin Templeton files with SEC for spot bitcoin ETF (link)

Visa publishes a deep dive on Solana (link)

Sony Reveals Blockchain Plans to 'Building a Web3 Network that Connect Souls Across Generations' (link and see more here)

Telegram integrates TON-based crypto wallet for its 800 million users (link)

Deutsche Bank partners with Taurus to offer digital asset custody and tokenization services (link)

LayerZero and Google Cloud officially form partnership, with the Google Cloud oracle set to verify all LayerZero messages by default (link)

MetaMask to be usable outside the EVM ecosystem with Snaps launch (link)

Solana is coming to MetaMask thanks to Snaps (link)

Thirdweb launches their Account Abstraction Toolkit - the fastest way to build with Smart Wallets on any EVM (link)

Apple secures rights to book on Sam Bankman-Fried for $5M (link)

HashDex files for a Ethereum Spot ETF (link)

FTX can begin selling its digital assets, bankruptcy court rules (link)

G20 Announces Plan To Impose Digital Currencies And IDs Worldwide (link)

Hong Kong retains top crypto-ready position for two consecutive years (link)

Bitcoin Mining Surpasses 50% Clean Energy Usage - Elon’s return? (link)

Launch of Uranium3o8 ($U), the First Token Physically Backed by Uranium (link)

Italian Luxury Watch Brand Panerai to Include NFT 'Digital Passport' With All Luxury Watches (link)

New DCG plan could see Gemini Earn users get back all their crypto (link)

Polygon releases proposals on 2.0 upgrade and POL token migration (link)

Polygon co-founder: $1B bet on ZK-rollups paying off (link)

Astar Network, leading blockchain of Japan, joins Ethereum and will launch a zkEVM chain using Polygon CDK, an Ethereum L2 secured by ZK (link)

Safe deploys on Polygon zkEVM: L2 Scaling with Smart Accounts (link)

Fireblocks, Crypto Safekeeping Specialist, Introduces Non-Custodial Wallet Service (link)

Synapse Labs goes live with two testnet launches : Synapse Interchain Network (the first Optimistic PoS Interchain Network) and Synapse Chain (L2 built on the Syn OP stack) (link)

Consensys-owned Infura plans to start decentralizing by end of 2023 (link)

Magic Eden Rolls Out Lucky Buy (link)

Polychain-backed Manta launches Pacific Layer 2 on mainnet (link)

Binance Airdrop $3M BNB to Morocco Earthquake Victims (link)

Karl Greenwood, co-founder of the fraudulent OneCoin cryptocurrency, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for $4B crypto fraud scheme (link)

Gaming Updates

Unity adding a fee for each time a game is installed, sees immediate backlash (link)

Ancient8 announces the Ancient8 Chain - a gaming-focused community-driven Ethereum Layer 2, powered by OP Stack, built to onboard the next 100M Web3 citizens (link)

PUBG Creator Krafton Unveils 'Overdare' NFT Game With AI Creation Tools (link)

Tencent Cloud Unveils Blockchain RPC for Developers and Enterprises (link)

Roblox’s chief executive made 10 big predictions about the future of the platform, and one of them involved dating. (link)

Sleepagotchi (💰) launches 2.0 with new features, improved house & room designs, a world map, and much more. Download on IOS now! (link)

Extraction shooter Shrapnel (💰) won’t let US players cash out (link)

Saudi Arabia looks to blockchain gaming and Web3 to diversify economy (link)

NFL Rivals Hits Record Daily Active Users After App Store Game of the Day Feature (link)

Pixels Migrates to Ronin Network from Polygon (link)

AI Updates

Musk Warns Senators About AI Threat, While Gates Says the Technology Could Target World Hunger (link)

Arm prices IPO at $51 per share, valuing company at over $54B (link)

Meta is developing a new, more powerful AI system (link)

Morgan Stanley Introduces AI-Powered Chatbot for Enhanced Services (link)

Stability AI, gunning for a hit, launches an AI-powered music generator (link)

Coke introduces a new mystery flavor, made by AI (link)

How We Chose the TIME100 Most Influential People in AI (link)

Character.ai Surpasses ChatGPT In Mobile App Usage In The US (link)

EY announces launch of AI platform EY.ai, $1.4B invested over 18 months (link)

Nvidia's new cloud business competes with AWS (link)

Other Updates

McCarthy Launches Biden Impeachment Inquiry (link)

Government shutdown would have 'modest impact' on economy (link)

Apple’s cheapest iPhone 15 Pro Max now costs more — but also has double the storage (link)

China Denies iPhone Ban Rumors (link)

$1.5 Trillion Dollars Worth Of 'White Gold' Found In Supervolcano On Nevada-Oregon Border (link)

Russia’s Putin praises Elon Musk as an ‘outstanding person’ and ‘talented businessman’ (link)

Research & Interesting Reads

Messari | friend.tech Flips The NFT Market

Real Agency | This is Roblox In 2023

Konvoy | The Future of Handheld Gaming

The Generalist | Modern Meditations: Rebecca Kaden - The Union Square Ventures managing partner on stories, ancient structures, and technological salvation.

Tiny Rebel’s (💰) CEO Susan Cummings on why web3 games should be more fun

Bloomberg | From $1 Billion to Almost Worthless: FaZe Clan Runs Out of Hype

NFT Drops & Updates

Yuga Labs introduces the Made By Apes Bodega - an official directory for all valid and active MBA licenses (link)

Patrick Mahome’s Museum of Mahomes II to launch on September 15th with exclusive access to special edition sports cards, autographed memorabilia, limited edition merch, 1:1 grail cards and so much more (link)

Starbucks Odyssey conducts another drop on Nifty Gateway (link)

Nakamigos expands with a 20K collection of cloak-based NFTs. Free for OG holders (link)

Animoca Brands Subsidiary focused on arcade gaming, GAMEE, launches ‘Beasties’ NFT companions for its popular Arc8 platform (link)

Large web3 influencer, wale.swoosh, joins Animoca Brands as an official ambassador for Mocaverse ecosystem (link)

Notable Raises

Paradigm set to raise $1B crypto fund by the end of the year or early next year (link)

Databricks raises $500M at a $43B valuation in a round led by T. Rowe Price Associates with follow-on from Nvidia and Capital One Ventures (link)

Cendana Capital closes on $470M more to back seed-stage fund managers (link)

Crypto VC Electric Capital aims to raise $300M for new fund (link)

Bitget unveils $100M fund to invest in exchanges, data analytics and media (link)

Indian gaming giant Nazara Technologies raises $49M to make strategic acquisitions and investments in other gaming and sports media companies (link)

Animoca Brands Raises $20M, led by CMCC Global, to Pursue ‘Single Native Web3 Project’ Mocaverse (link)

Google to invest $20M into AI-focused grants for think tanks and academic institutions (link)

Pahdo Labs raises $15M for anime-inspired game world and UGC platform, led by a16z (link)

Usage.AI, a leader in identifying cloud savings, has raised $9M in a round led by Amity Ventures (link)

GamePhilos raises $8M, led by Xterio, Animoca Ventures, SevenX Ventures and Chain Hill Capital, for mobile strategy game Age of Dino (link)

Mythic Protocol Raises $6.5M Seed Round, led by Shima Capital, to Build the World First: Collaborative Entertainment (link)

Layer N’s, an ETH Layer-2, $5M round includes support from Peter Thiel-backed Founders Fund (link)

Parallax, a cross-border payment system, raises a $4.5M seed round led by Dragonfly (link)

Rascal Games, an a16z Games Speedrun company, raises $4.2M to bring to life Project Wayward, a shared world PvE action adventure game (link)

Club3, a web3 community operating platform, raises a $3M seed round (link)

Octav Raises $2.65M to Help Label DeFi Transactions (link)

0xPass raises $1.8M from AllianceDAO, Balaji Srinivasan and others to build secure login systems for web3 (link)

Mo & Andrew's Curated

Macro

Watcher.Guru

BREAKING: US inflation rises to 3.7%, higher than expectations.

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: SEC Chair Gary Gensler says crypto is full of fraud, abuse and misconduct.

Watcher.Guru

US Senator Elizabeth Warren calls to investigate Elon Musk.

While serving 10 years in Congress with an annual salary of $193,000, she managed to increase her net worth to $73,000,000.

The Kobeissi Letter

If it seems like liquidity is drying up, that's because it is.

According to JP Morgan, current excess household liquidity stands at $1.4 trillion.

However, they expect that liquidity to be fully depleted by May 2024.

Excess household savings are being depleted at a rate of…

Web3

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: Former Paypal President says "we're trying to turn #Bitcoin into a global payment network."

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: Binance US CEO resigns.

Crypto Rover

@rovercrc

FTX is expected to receive approval to liquidate the following assets on September 13th.

$SOL $685,000,000
$FTT $529,000,000
$BTC $268,000,000
$ETH $90,000,000
$APT $67,000,000
$DOGE $42,000,000
$MATIC $39,000,000
$BIT $35,000,000
$TON $31,000,000
$XRP $29,000,000

They had $3.4…

TCB

@THORmaximalist

Bitcoin is now supported by @MetaMask

This is not a drill.

Small

DEGEN NEWS 🗞️

NEW: @Visa PUBLISHES "A DEEP DIVE ON @solana, A HIGH PERFORMANCE BLOCKCHAIN NETWORK" - ACKNOWLEDGES THAT @solana ACHIEVES "... FINALITY IN A MUCH SHORTER TIME THAN MANY OTHER BLOCKCHAINS"

Wu Blockchain

FTX has filed a recovery lawsuit against LayerZero, including that LayerZero received $21 million from FTX and co-founder Ari Litan and his company received $19.5 million, according to @sunil_trades. Under bankruptcy law, a company can apply to recoup funds paid in the 90 days…

DEGEN NEWS 🗞️

BREAKING: @friendtech FLIPS @Bitcoin TO BREAK INTO THE TOP 3 CRYPTO PROTOCOLS BY TOTAL AMOUNT OF FEES GENERATED IN THE PAST 24 HOURS

RSTLSS

@RSTLSSxyz

RSTLSS and @props have just won first place at the @Ubisoft Hackathon in Singapore, presenting our vision for interoperable game assets across the Ubiverse.

Watch this space

IZUMO

@IZUMOofficial

[Ailis Voice Generator]

Introducing Ailis Voice Generator Beta. Elevate your creative submissions for the Creator Contest with the following attributes:

1. Free to use
2. Available in EN, CH, JP

Voiced by CoeFont.cloud
Detail

NFT

Non-Refungible Network

@Non_Refungible

JUST IN: SEC charges creator of @stonercatstv web series for unregistered offering of NFTs

Hunter Solaire ᵍᵐ

@huntersolaire_

~40% of Nouns are quitting the DAO and claiming a refund

Noun #1 sold for 613 ETH in August '21 ($1.9M at the time)

Now Nouns are only going for around 35 ETH ($40k)

Some holders think the $30M treasury is being thrown out the window

Here's what's causing problems:…

Cirrus

@CirrusNFT

After months of theatrics, Machi's Apecoin proposal to use 11,000,000 $APE to purchase Apes/Mutants/Punks and place them into museums is finally going live for voting tomorrow

If passed (feels likely), a new governance token $DAM will be launched and used "for the selection and…

Leonidas

@LeonidasNFT

BREAKING: Bitcoin startup @btcordinal is building a full scale Ordinals MMORPG!

Gaming

Jake Lucky

Delphi Digital | Opportunities in Web3 Mobile Gaming

FaZe Clan CEO Lee Trink has been terminated by the company, effective immediately

Eric Seufert

@eric_seufert

Unity has introduced a new "runtime" fee, which developers incur on a per-install basis for games made with the Unity Engine. blog.unity.com/news/plan-pric…

Pim de Witte

@PimDeWitte

I’m originally a @unitygames developer and creator of an open source Unity project used by thousands of developers.

I’m now a CEO of a $100M+ company. Here’s where I’m at on the Unity pricing model change.

First, let’s dig into why they likely did this.
1) per-seat pricing…

Attis

@Attis_gaming

Furry hooligans on skateboards, plungers as weapons, and partners such as prime gaming create a unique game in My Pet Hooligan.

This is why the MPH IP will become a staple Battle Royale in gaming. [1/7]

Nifty Island 🏝

@Nifty_Island

We've been cooking. Closed alpha is almost over. Join our Discord to get in on the ground floor.

Lucky Trader

@LuckyTraderHQ

DraftKings Reignmakers has reached 2nd on the CryptoSlam weekly volume board with $4.5M+ in sales.

This puts DraftKing's product ahead of all of the ETH-based NFTs in volume, including Bored Ape Yacht Club.

Reignmakers accounted for 62% of Polygon trading volume on the week.

Rowan Cheung

@rowancheung

Roblox is about to onboard over 200M people to AI.

They just revealed a new AI chatbot called Roblox Assistant, allowing creators build virtual worlds just by typing prompts.

What's even more fascinating, is that over 43% of Roblox users are under the age of 13.

The next-gen…

Random

Marques Brownlee

@MKBHD

Welcome to Apple week! Warm take: Every feature announced with iPhone 15 tomorrow will fall into 2 buckets:

1: Something that has already been in other phones for years

2: Something that only works with other iPhones (ecosystem)

Full iOS 17 video: youtu.be/5LWDl5qaQbA?si…

Eric Feigl-Ding

@DrEricDing

CDC experts recommend new #COVID XBB boosters for everyone ages 6 months and older! Advisors voted 13-1. While the benefits appear to be greatest for the oldest and youngest people, the benefits exceed the risks for everyone, according to CDC analysis.

npr.org

CDC advisers back broad rollout out of new COVID boosters

A panel of doctors and scientists advising the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted to recommend that people 6 months of age and older get new COVID boosters this fall.

💰 = Sfermion Portfolio Company

Curated by @mopat1214 + @AndrewSteinwold

Sfermion's Collider #37

sfermions-collider@newsletter.paragraph.com (Mo Patel) — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Sfermion is an investment firm focused on backing the founders building the metaverse.

Hello 👋

Welcome to the 37th edition of Sfermion’s Collider where we highlight the latest & greatest news in the world of web3, gaming & entertainment, macro, AI, and more!

Weekly, we aim to drop a curated list of the most exciting stories & updates that we believe are enabling the emergence of the metaverse.

Web3 Updates

Southeast Asia super-app Grab adds support for web3 services (link)

JPMorgan exploring blockchain-based payment and settlement system (link)

Visa’s crypto stablecoin settlement expands to merchant acquirers via Solana (link)

Swift unlocks potential of tokenization with successful blockchain experiments (link)

Race for a spot ether ETF begins with bid from Ark Invest, 21Shares (link)

MetaMask adds 'cash out' function allowing users to sell crypto for fiat (link)

Drake-Backed Crypto Casino Stake Loses $40M in 'Unauthorized' Transfers (link)

FBI blames North Korea’s Lazarus Group for $40M Stake hack (link)

Half of the People in Turkey Now Own Crypto (link)

Chinese fintech giant Ant Group launches overseas blockchain brand ZAN (link)

Robinhood Buys Back Sam Bankman-Fried’s Seized Shares Worth $600M (link)

Casio to release virtual G-SHOCK NFTs on Polygon (link)

OP Labs hires former Google exec as chief operating officer (link)

DApp store for your wallet: Consensys readying cross-chain Metamask Snaps (link)

Riot compensated $30M to shut off Texas bitcoin miners in August (link)

Vitalik Buterin co-authors paper on regulation-friendly Tornado Cash alternative (link)

Storygrounds (💰) announces Storygrounds Alpha with pre-registration now live! (link)

Avalanche and Hyperspace (💰), a leading marketplace & launchpad on SOL and Sui, forge partnership (link)

Individual loses $24M in likely crypto phishing attack (link)

ByBit Launches AI-Powered Trading Assistant (link)

Monax Labs launches Aspen to guarantee royalties for Web3 creators (link)

Kraken gradually rolling out PayPal deposits in UK and Europe (link)

Gaming Updates

Google loosens ad guidelines for NFT game providers (link)

PUBG Developers Unveil Cosmos-Based Settlus Blockchain for USDC Settlements (link)

NPixel is looking to sunset metaverse/web3 operations (link)

UAE Looks Set to Legalize Gambling (link)

Roblox Is Finally Coming to PlayStation This Year (link)

Hurley Drops Super Surfer Game NFTs on SKALE Blockchain (link)

MrBeast-Promoted 'Creator League' Postponed After Gamers Bail Amid NFT Backlash (link)

Gala Games Co-Founders Sue Each Other Alleging Corporate Waste, $130M Theft (link)

YouTube’s latest experiment is playing games (link)

TikTok wants to become mobile’s new launchpad, not a game platform (link)

Epic Games Embraces AI In Games, In Break With Steam (link)

Former PlayStation boss says Amazon, Netflix pose huge threat to the game industry (link)

Cradles is set to launch its open beta on September 10th (link)

Enjin Blockchain is finally launching on September 13th (link)

Deadfellaz announces TCG and pre-access vault sale (link)

Sorare unveils 3D and AR player cards (link)

Noonoouri becomes first digital artist to be signed by Warner Music (link)

Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Mobile already has 17 million pre-orders (link)

AI Updates

Elon Musk Reportedly Wants to Fold Neuralink and Tesla Into One Big Weird AI Company (link)

Arm, the Softbank Group-owned chip designer, is headed for a $52 billion IPO (link)

Google DeepMind co-founder argues US should set AI global standards (link)

OpenAI Plugs ChatGPT Into Canva to Sharpen Its Competitive Edge in AI (link)

Google's Generative AI Tools Now Turn Text Into Online Worlds (link)

Other Updates

China Bans iPhone Use for Government Officials at Work (link)

The End of Airbnb in New York (link)

Clubhouse is trying to make a comeback (link)

Research & Interesting Reads

Konvoy | Distributing Games on TV

David Phelps | The Proto-App Thesis

GamesTX | Gala imbroglio

Metaversal | Arbitrum: The Future of Gaming

Eigenlayer | Intro to EigenDA: Hyperscale Data Availability for Rollups

Polygon Labs | Lawnmower Racing, NFT-Powered Girl Capitalism and the Rise of Korean Web3 Superpower

Polygon Labs | Hang’s Guide to Next Gen Loyalty in Web3

NFT Drops & Updates

Yuga expands TwelveFold collector experience with cipher puzzle series, spanning 12 weeks with weekly BTC rewards (link)

Reddit Kicks Off Football Season With NFTs of Every NFL Team (link)

Zynga’s Sugartown will have their first NFT mint on September 13th (link)

Via AnotherBlock, Justin Bieber Producer Is Selling Royalties for the Song 'Company' as NFTs (link)

Casio to release virtual G-SHOCK NFTs on Polygon (link)

Hot Wheels Introduces New NFT Collection: Garage Series 6 (link)

“Captain Tsubasa” Tsubasa Team Collection - Sandbox Avatars (link)

Notable Raises

Podium (💰) raises 2M€ from Fabric Ventures, Sfermion, and Seedcamp to further develop fantasy sports data tooling (link)

Coinbase shares more on The Base Ecosystem Fund, and announces their first 6 investments : One of them being Paragraph (💰), an on-chain newsletter & publishing platform (link)

Story Protocol launches with $54M round led by a16z to tap IP ownership (link)

aelf Ventures Launches $50M Ventures Fund to Boost Blockchain Innovation (link)

Alpha Protocol Ventures (APV) has established a $20M fund to invest in undervalued Web3 projects and companies focused on blockchain gaming and tokens (link)

Pantera Capital leads $16.5M round for StarkWare-powered DEX Brine Fi (link)

Trident Digital Group, a newly launched startup founded by former Coinbase executives, raised $8M (led by Whitestar and New Form) for its “next generation” crypto lending business (link)

Galactic War P2E Game Receives $6M Funding from KaJ Labs (link)

Interoperability Protocol Socket Raises $5M Co-Led by Coinbase Ventures and Framework Ventures (link)

Web3 arts startup TRLab raises $5M from Hivemind Capital, OKX Ventures (link)

Gleen announces a $4.9M fundraise to push the boundaries of customer support using generative AI (link)

GAM3S raises $2M to build the #1 web3 gaming platform (link)

Helix raises $2M to connect crypto investors with private credit yields (link)

Metahorse Unity raises $1.9M to continue building the ultimate RPG horse racing game (link)

Mo & Andrew's Curated

Macro

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: JPMorgan Chase is developing a blockchain-based digital deposit token to speed up cross-border payments.

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: Turkish crypto exchange CEO sentenced to 11,196 years in prison for stealing $2 billion in customer funds.

The Spectator Index

@spectatorindex

JUST IN: The New York Post reports Americans are defaulting on credit cards and auto loans at the highest levels since the financial crisis.

Watcher.Guru

BlackRock and JPMorgan Chase are helping the Ukrainian government launch a recovery bank to raise hundreds of billions of dollars to rebuild Ukraine.

Watcher.Guru

JUST IN: Mexican billionaire says he only holds #Bitcoin, MicroStrategy, Bitcoin miners, oil companies and gold miners in his portfolio.

The Kobeissi Letter

The US is now paying ~$2 billion PER DAY in interest expense on federal debt.

This has doubled since the pre-pandemic levels of ~$1 billion per day.

Since 2020, the US has added a historic $9.1 TRILLION to the national debt.

Meanwhile, 31% of outstanding debt is going to…

Bitcoin News

@BitcoinNewsCom

NEW: Chinese Yuan at its lowest level vs. the dollar since 2008

Is the dollar wrecking ball back?

Web3

Wu Blockchain

Breaking: Southeast Asia’s largest Uber-like app Grab adds Web3 crypto wallet. Grab has 180 million users. Currently, the Singapore region shows that it can be used. It currently shows that the Polygon wallet is supported, and there are guidance content for wallets and NFTs.…

DeFi Made Here

@DeFi_Made_Here

1/ Recently, @BankofAmerica released a report predicting asset tokenization will exceed $16T in the next 5-15 years,

And cited @Avax Subnets as one of the key platforms driving the future of transferring value globally.

S4mmy.eth

@S4mmyEth

MetaMask just rolled out ETH to fiat withdrawals.

∼9% in transaction fees and 5 minutes later my fiat withdrawal dropped into my bank.(1/8)

Storygrounds

@storygrounds

Today our team is delighted to announce the Storygrounds alpha. Pre-register now at storygrounds.com

SG brings anyone into stories they love! Our platform allows folks of all skill levels to unleash their creativity, and together, create everyone’s fav new Webcomics!

Patrick Hansen

@paddi_hansen

Really cool to see huge brands like @lufthansa tapping into NFTs to create a better loyalty/miles & more program that will include an own marketplace where customers can buy & sell their #NFTs that can be used for flight upgrades etc.

These kinds of NFTs, with real utility in…

Lore

@loredotxyz

𝗔𝗡𝗡𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗖𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗩𝟮 𝗢𝗙 𝗟𝗢𝗥𝗘

Where communities turn social energy into collective power.

In a few weeks, we launch an app for Collective Crowdfunding.

Exclusively on @BuildOnBase. Mobile and newbie-friendly.

fiskantes.lens ⭐️🩸

@Fiskantes

Imo there will be more than one narrative, not a single one will be totally dominating the others, the biggest potential ones:

Web3 gaming: Many are jaded about this vertical because we never saw actually good and fun games touching crypto, just DeFi degen games with gamified…

Che 👹

@Cheguevoblin

What are the possibilities for “Main Narrative” of a possible 2025 Bull Run

For me right now it’s like

Gamefi 35%
Memes 30%
Defi Again 10%
Ai 10%
Nft Main 5%
Social Fi 5%
Something Else 5%

Open and interested in any and all thoughts on this salient question

EigenLayer

@eigenlayer

Intro to EigenDA: Hyperscale DA for Rollups

This post represents our 1st public, long-form content about EigenDA - what it is, how it works, what benefits it offers to rollups. There's too much to summarize fully, so please read at the link below!

blog.eigenlayer.xyz/intro-to-eigen…

1/5

blog.eigenlayer.xyz

Intro to EigenDA: Hyperscale Data Availability for Rollups

We’ll assume that you know what data availability is, and why it’s important for blockchains and rollups. For more information on data availability, see the Ethereum Foundation docs on Data Availab...

Sam Sends

@sam_sends

We’re stopping development of @GlassProtocol.

The website, protocol, and NFTs will remain operational and are stored safely.

Two years ago, we ventured into the NFT space to improve monetization for video creators. A lot has changed in the last two years, and the space has…

Franklin 🪁

@franklinpayroll

In a belated celebration of Labor Day, we're releasing the first Web3 Jobs Report

You can learn more about:
- average comp for different positions
- most popular skill sets for the most in demand jobs
- where are the hiring hotspots

Check it out here and let us know what…

Panda Jackson

@pandajackson42

@reservoir0x has announced the launch of NFT dataset on @DuneAnalytics.

After 100+ hours of deep diving, I want to explain why this partnership matters to the whole crypto world.

If you are an NFT degen or Web3 data expert, this is the unmissable ALPHA leak for you.

thread

NFTs

NFTstats.eth

@punk9059

“Pudgies is on pace to do $10mn in toy sales in our first 7 months. That’s sustainable. That forecastable.

At some point you have to ask yourself are you here to give from the space or to take from the space. I know which side I’m on.”

@LucaNetz in Seoul

Holograph

@holographxyz

Holograph is now live on @ourZORA

Mint natively multichain digital assets on this exciting new L2

Magic Eden on Bitcoin 🟧

@MEonBTC

Why is Bitcoin being thrown around on Magic Eden?

BECAUSE ITEM BID OFFERS ARE LIVE!

Make & accept offers on any Ordinals & BRC-20 listed on Magic Eden today!

Leonidas

@LeonidasNFT

BREAKING: Ethereum 10K PFP collection @OnChainMonkey is migrating their entire collection to Bitcoin!

nft now

@nftnow

SALE: Mutant Ape #30002 has sold for 500ETH ($800K).

Backpack 🎒

@xNFT_Backpack

October

Max Branzburg 🛡

@maxbranzburg

2/ As part of Onchain Summer, we worked with 23 partners to showcase onchain art, culture, music, gaming, and more

These collections generated 700,000 total mints from 268,000 unique wallets

Gaming

Bored Ape Yacht Club

The time for HVs to Forge their own destiny is near.

Explore. Battle. Win. Evolve.

The Hunt begins on Sept. 7th.

Gas Hero Official

@GasHeroOfficial

Gas Hero x Polygon

We’re thrilled to announce that #GasHero will be launching exclusively on @0xPolygon

The game developed by @FSLWeb3, the makers of #STEPN is expected to launch in Dec 2023.

A thread [1/8]

Cradles

@cradlesio

BIG NEWS from CRADLES!

We're launching our Public Beta on September th! Inviting everyone to experience our world:

Date: September 10th
Participation: Open to all!
Download on:
Steam (Bonus: Secure an exclusive NFT when you download via Steam!)

Jonah 🎮

This team has worked very hard to get where they are. They raised money from web3. While it is now 2.5, you should
watch them because the game is actually fun and they’re pushing the horror genre.

Josh Lu

@JoshLu

Ben Feder is a board director of Epic (makers of Fortnite) and is now running his own venture fund. Here's his advice to games investors and founders:

1/ Taste matters
2/ Investors and founders should think big
3/ Raise more than you think you need

1/8

cartridge

@cartridge_gg

Hello World

Introducing @cartridge_gg: an onchain gaming company

Excited to share more about our mission, funding and the games, tools and infrastructure we're building

Backed by @chapterone @dunevc @__geometry__ @fabric_vc @voltcapital @starkwareltd

cartridge.gg

Hello World - Cartridge Gaming Company

Build, deploy, and scale fully onchain games and Autonomous Worlds

BlockGames

@GetBlockGames

Excited to announce our Mint details

September 21st, 4 pm UTC.

[5555 Supply]

[Free Mint]

Make sure to set your reminder on @opensea

opensea.io/drops

Don’t miss our Founder's message @benbaltram

Daily Loud

@DailyLoud

AI-generated Drake and The Weeknd song “Heart On My Sleeve” has been submitted to The Grammys.

According to Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. in an interview with The New York Times, “it’s absolutely eligible because it was written by a human.”

Random

ChainLinkGod.eth

@ChainLinkGod

The reality is that there is no net new money coming into crypto at the moment

- Retail is rekt and normies mostly think crypto is a scam

- Funds are largely rekt and capital inflow has significantly slowed down

- Institutions are largely on the sidelines waiting for…

Watcher.Guru

GTA 6 is rumored to cost $150 per copy.

Watcher.Guru

Pantera Capital | A Positive Black Swan

JUST IN: Apple lost $200 billion in market value over the past two days after China banned its government from using iPhones.

Marques Brownlee

@MKBHD

NEW VIDEO - I used a "crypto phone" so you didn't have to. Full video here: youtu.be/hRSMJGs0YMg

Breaking911

@Breaking911

KJP: “[Biden] will be masking while indoors and around people. [...] As has been the practice in the past, the President will remove his mask when sufficiently distanced from others indoors and while outside as well."

💰 = Sfermion Portfolio Company

Curated by @mopat1214 + @AndrewSteinwold

Sfermion's Collider #36

sfermions-collider@newsletter.paragraph.com (Mo Patel) — Fri, 01 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMT

Sfermion is an investment firm focused on backing the founders building the metaverse.

Hello 👋

Welcome to the 36th edition of Sfermion’s Collider where we highlight the latest & greatest news in the world of web3 and gaming!

Weekly, we aim to drop a curated list of the most exciting stories & updates that we believe are enabling the emergence of the metaverse.

Web3 Updates

Court hands Grayscale win in long-running suit against SEC (link)

Court sides with Uniswap over class action suit (link)

SEC Delays Spot Bitcoin ETF Decision for All Applicants Including BlackRock, Fidelity (link)

SEC brings first NFT enforcement action in case against podcast studio (link)

Treasury, IRS release proposed crypto tax reporting rules (link)

Mastercard, Binance to end crypto-card partnership in September (link)

Twitter Obtains License for Cryptocurrency Payments (link)

Lufthansa Launches NFT-Based Loyalty Program on Polygon (link)

Polygon Labs unveils Chain Development Kit to develop and connect Ethereum Layer 2s (link)

OpenSea introduces ERC-7498 as a new standard for NFT redeemables (link)

Mercado Libre, Circle expand into Chile with USDC (link)

Indian Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Firm Will Explore Blockchain Platforms and CBDCs (link)

LimeWire continues Web3 journey with ‘creator studio’ on Polygon (link)

MoonPay launches venture arm to invest in web3 infra, gaming and fintech (link)

AI Updates

Google DeepMind Launches SynthID, a Groundbreaking Watermarking Tool for AI-Generated Images (link)

New York Times, CNN and Australia’s ABC block OpenAI’s GPTBot web crawler from accessing content (link)

Nvidia’s stock closes at record after Google AI partnership (link)

The US Air Force wants $5.8B to build 1,000 AI-driven unmanned combat aircraft (link)

Snapchat is expanding further into generative AI with ‘Dreams’ (link)

Meta launches own AI code-writing tool: Code Llama (link)

OpenAI names Scale AI ‘preferred partner’ to fine-tune GPT-3.5 (link)

Figma introduces Jambot, an AI assistant widget for its whiteboard platform, FigJam (link)

Animoca’s Ed-tech Subsidiary Rolls Out AI Tools for Educators (link)

Gaming Updates

Marques Brownlee and BasedAF (💰) Team Up for Studio Build in Fortnite (link)

The Pokémon Company made $11.6B from licensed products in 2022 (link)

Epic's First Run offers 100% revenue share to game devs in exchange for exclusivity (link)

EA Sports FC Explores Uncharted Territory: NFTs and Web 3 Integration (link)

NFL Rivals Game Now Lets You Buy NFTs on iOS and Android (link)

Cradles (💰), available on Steam, is a time-traveling MMO that is set to launch an open beta phase on September 10th (link)

Immutable (💰) and Meta X Studios Form Partnership (link)

Walmart launches new digital and metaverse offerings (link)

Walt Disney Pictures VFX workers file for unionization (link)

Cocone, a Japanese immersive entertainment studio, enters U.S. gaming and entertainment market with avatars and digital fashion (link)

Grand Theft Auto 6: Everything You Need to Know (link)

Retro Gaming Console Atari 2600 Is Making a Comeback (link)

Research & Interesting Reads

Andrew Chen (a16z Gaming) | Creator Economy 2.0: What we’ve learned, why it’s hard, and what’s next

Konvoy | Copyright Law and GenAI Content

Ben Roy | Ethereum is a Game Environment

Bankless | Your Brain on Crypto

StoryCo | The "Storyline" from StoryCo - Issue 004

Binance Research | Ethereum’s Rollups are Centralized. A Look Into Decentralized Sequencers

GameDev Reports | InvestGame: The gaming investment market in H1 2023

Naavik | Zynga Dives into Web3 with Sugartown

Blockchain Gamer | Top 10 most anticipated blockchain games

NFT Drops & Updates

IZUMO (💰) | SAI #5 Free Mint Claim is available until September 6th, 8am PST. Don't miss your chance to win his autographed physical art! (link)

IZUMO (💰) | SAI #4 Free Mint Claim is available until August 31st, 8am PST. Don’t miss your chance to win 1 of 3 limited-edition autographed physical pieces! (link)

Cryptoys and Disney partner to launch digital toys called “Mickey and Friends” priced at $39.99. The 15-piece collections features different "skin designs" and levels of rarity. (link)

Maui Strong: Hawaii Artist Teams Up With Decrypt for NFT Fundraiser (link)

Digital friends platform Fini & Base team up for final on-chain summer mint (link)

Introducing Igloo, a brand by Pudgy Penguins (link)

Bright Moments | Introducing the CryptoPatagonians of Crypto Citizens. Buenos Aires, Argentina. November 2-5, 2023 (link)

Karim Rashid, Beeple, and more artists collaborate to create the world’s most beautiful digital analog clock. Available for purchase now and while supply lasts. (link)

Notable Raises

Hugging Face Receives $235M Investment Raising Value To $4.5B (link)

Modular secures $100M to build tools to optimize and create AI models (link)

Vessel Capital emerges from stealth with $55M fund focused on web3 infrastructure and apps (link)

Qualiti.ai Secures $6.5M Seed Funding to Ensure Software Engineers Never Need to Test Again (link)

Interactive drama developer Scriptic has raised a total $6.2M in additional seed funding, including an investment from Sony Innovation Fund. (link)

Web3 marketing firm DeForm raises $4.6M in seed funding (link)

Wand.app raises $4.2M to scale its AI-powered creative tool for artists (link)

FirstMate, a startup aiming to equip NFT creators with digital storefronts, raises $3.75M in Dragonfly-led round (link)

Stroom Network Raises $3.5M to Launch Bitcoin 'Liquid Staking' on Lightning (link)

NPCx raises $3M for better game character mocap (link)

Tako Protocol, a startup building an open social recommendation layer for web3 social, raises $2M pre-seed from UOB Ventures and others (link)

Mo & Andrew's Curated

Web3

Brian Armstrong 🛡️

1/ I'm sharing the 10 ideas I'm most excited about in crypto right now. If you're building something in crypto or thinking about doing so - check it out.

We’re building lots at Coinbase, but we don't have time to tackle everything. So I figured I'd share these. Bear markets are…

nic 🌠 carter

i dont think people realize just how quickly fintech frontend / stablecoin backend apps have proliferated. faster & cheaper than ordinary remittance channels. plus self custody USD if desired. and here we have half of fintwit saying crypto never found a killer app

Andrew "The Metaverse Guy" Steinwold

@AndrewSteinwold

More positive news on the regulatory front for crypto!

Kathryn Haun

@katie_haun

On the Uniswap dismissal today

Today’s decision out of SDNY highlights the extent to which some in the federal judiciary appreciate the uncharted territory on the applicability of securities laws to an asset class as broad as crypto. For example, the judge:

*Recognizes…

Fini

@finidotworld

Dark forces are closing in. There’s FUD at every turn. But the fightback starts now.

Join the Base Wars this Thursday, August 31st

It’s the final drop of Onchain Summer and it’s going out with a BANG

amanda

@amanda0x

1/ @friendtech has reached 400k+ transactions across 32k unique buyers. And their mobile app wasn’t even listed in an App Store.
dune.com/cryptokoryo/fr…

Will hundreds more Web3 mobile apps follow in their footsteps? My take below

dune.com

Friend.Tech

Blockchain ecosystem analytics by and for the community. Explore and share data from Ethereum, Bitcoin, Polygon, BNB Chain, Solana, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism, Fantom and Gnosis Chain for free.

anotherblock

@anotherblock_io

new drop alert

JUSTIN BIEBER - COMPANY
live on base 7.09.23//7.sept.23

stay tuned for the full drop details

our next music rights collectible, don’t miss it

due to an uncertain regulatory environment, US minters will be geo-blocked for this drop

NFTs

Bored Ape Yacht Club

Happy Mutant Monday and thanks to everyone who celebrated 2 years of MAYC with us. Special thanks to @AppliedPrimate, @mutant_cartel, @notthreadguy, and Ferg for throwing a party only fit for Mutants.

SuperRare 💎

@SuperRare

Curation Staking is live on Rare Protocol!! Now is the time to be 1st to stake in the artists (or collectors!) you .

Staking will transform the SuperRare user experience. For details, read the thread below (including a “how to” video), & get started here:…

Rare Protocol

@rare_protocol

The moment is now!! Rare Protocol has officially launched and Curation Staking is live on Ethereum mainnet. Read on to learn more, or head to Rare.xyz to get in early and be the first to stake on your favorite artists (or collectors!)

Foundation 🌐

@foundation

A solo show.
An exhibition.
A seasonal collection.

Introducing Moments.
A new way to create events in Worlds.

↳ foundation.app/blog/worlds-me…

RTFKT

@RTFKT

Cryptokicks iRL dispatch initiating

Shipping will begin in the first week of September.

doodles

Color the world with joy on your next walk outdoors!

The limited edition Doodles @Crocs collection is coming next week.

24-hr OG Holder presale beginning Aug 28th and 48-hr public sale goes live Aug 29th.

Pudgy Penguins

Introducing Igloo, a brand by Pudgy Penguins.

The debut collection for Igloo is now live. More information below.

IZUMO

@IZUMOofficial

[SAI by IZUMO #5: Limited-Time Claim]

Art drawn by KEI @keigarou is now available as a free NFT.
Don't miss your chance to win his autographed physical art!

sai.izumo.com/mission/5

Available until September 6, 8 am PST
#SAIbyIZUMO

sai.izumo.com

SAI by IZUMO - KEI

KEI's illustration. The SBT is distributed from Sep 1-Sep 7 (JST).

Keepers

@keepers

Congratulations to the first 500 Keepers – this is just the beginning

Now that our inaugural mint is closed, you have until tomorrow morning PST to custom configure your avatar before a unique configuration is randomly assigned

Wu Blockchain

In the past week, the transaction volume of the entire network NFT market was only 73.2 million US dollars, the lowest in the past two years. In addition, in recent weeks, the number of NFT trading users on the entire network has fluctuated around 50,000, which is also the lowest…

Gaming

Marques Brownlee

@MKBHD

Still insane to me that @BasedAF_ created our ENTIRE STUDIO as a playable Fortnite map. The internet goes so hard sometimes

Othersidemeta

Next month we release the open beta for LoTM — and there’s much more to come. We’ve partnered with @farawaygg and are building a major expansion in Unity. But we want to get an early version in the community’s hands now so you can play and provide feedback while we keep building.

Othersidemeta

Otherside has some visitors. And not all of them are happy to see you.

STEPN | Public Beta Phase VI

@Stepnofficial

Happy International Dog(e) Day

Embrace the meme and join the raffle to win co-branded @ownthedoge x @PleasrDAO x #STEPN Genesis Sneakers on Ethereum!

Read on for the details on how to get your hands on these beauties! [1/5]

#InternationalDogDay #DogDay

Random

unusual_whales