March 22, 2022       /       Unchained Daily       /       Laura Shin

Daily Bits ✍️✍️✍️

  • Staking ETH will most likely yield 10-15% APY after The Merge.

  • The SEC delayed its decision on WisdomTree and One River’s spot bitcoin ETF proposals.

  • Digital asset investment products saw an outflow of capital for the second consecutive week.

  • SushiSwap partnered with Moonbeam to make the decentralized exchange available on Polkadot.

  • Nearly $6 billion in ETH has been burned since EIP-1559’s introduction.

  • Tennis star Naomi Osaka has partnered with FTX to bring more women into crypto.

Today in Crypto Adoption…

  • Goldman Sachs made its first OTC crypto options trade via Galaxy Digital.

  • Malaysia’s Deputy Minister of Communications and Multimedia believes the country should recognize BTC and other crypto assets as legal tender.

  • FTX has expanded into Australia and is cautiously looking to extend its presence in the UK.

The $$$ Corner…

  • Crypto research firm The TIE raised a $9 million Series A.

What Do You Meme?

What’s Poppin’?

Another Day, Another Rug

 

Just months after raising an estimated $2 million+ via an NFT sale, the developers of NEONEXUS, a Solana-based metaverse project, are calling it quits, according to a tweet from founder Jack Shi.

It is with a heavy heart that we must inform you that we can no longer continue healthy development of the NEONEXUS project. We would like to hand over the project to our community, or a community-selected party for takeover if that’s feasible / possible.

I’m deeply sorry,

Jack

On Discord, Shi claimed that the project has run out of funds to continue development. “Our funds have been used towards paying fair wages to our 20+ staff members, development and tech costs, legal fees, accounting fees, liabilities, and all the business taxes due. We no longer have sufficient funds to continue development of the project,” explained Shi.

Shi went on to blame the falling price of SOL (which has more than halved since the project’s mint date) and lack of interest in SOL NFT projects in general as reasons why NEONEXUS is no longer being developed. “It has been incredibly difficult trying to grow and continue our project in this ecosystem and market conditions where the price of SOL has dropped so much and the activity, volume, and interest in the entirety of the Solana NFT space have decreased,” wrote Shi in Discord. He went on add that attempts to fundraise were unsuccessful.

According to Shi, the “entire” staff is being let go at the end of the month and he plans to hand over the development and governance of NEONEXUS to the community.

The response to Shi’s announcement was quite negative. On-chain sleuth @zachxbt noted that another of Shi’s NEONEXUS adjacent projects was selling NFTs as recently as two days ago. @zachbxt also posted several instances of Shi flexing pictures with expensive cars.

StoneTree’s Josh McGruff added that it was “another day, another rug” in the NFT world.

Recommended Reads

  1. Nic Carter on crypto mining:

  1. Simon de la Rouviere on NFTs and licensing:

  1. The Block’s Mike Honkasola on Lido:

On The Pod…

Ukraine Has Received $150 Million in Crypto. Here’s How It Is Being Used

 

Illia Polosukhin, co-founder NEAR Protocol, and George Kikvadze, executive vice chairman at BitFury Group, both of whom have called Ukraine “home” at one point in their lives, discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the role crypto is playing in the war, and the various avenues crypto users can donate to. Show topics:

  • George and Illia’s background in crypto

  • George and Ilia’s connection to Ukraine

  • why crypto is so popular in Ukraine

  • what supplies are being purchased with donated crypto

  • how to donate crypto to Ukraine

  • why Patreon blocked donations to Come Back Alive, a Ukrainian NGO

  • George and Illia’s estimation of the amount of crypto donations received by Ukraine

  • what department of Ukraine’s government spearheaded its adoption of crypto

  • what happened with the canceled airdrop

  • the different organizations accepting crypto donations in Ukraine

Book Update

My book, The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze, which is all about Ethereum and the 2017 ICO mania, is now available!

You can purchase it here: http://bit.ly/cryptopians