September 3, 2021       /       Unchained Daily       /       Laura Shin

Daily Bits ✍️✍️✍️

  • SushiSwap teased the release of Shoyu, its forthcoming NFT platform.

  • Cardano smart contract functionality launched on its testnet as ADA hits an ATH above $3.

  • Braintrust, a decentralized talent network, unveiled its BTRST token on Wednesday.

  • Coinbase will soon offer ETH 2.0 staking rewards for UK users.

  • A fractionalized Doge NFT is now valued at $300M, just months after being purchased for $4M.

  • The IRS received $180,000 in BTC after posing as a Bitcoin trader in a dark web deal.

  • Bitcoin hit $50,000 once again.

What Do You Meme?


What’s Poppin’?

OpenSea’s August Volume Blows Even Traditional Internet Marketplaces Out of the Water 

NFT marketplace OpenSea just completed a $3B month, according to data from Dune Analytics. That accounts for a near 10X of its previous high from July, when it hit $325M in volume.

OpenSea is far and away the leading NFT marketplace. According to Decrypt, the next largest platform is Axie Infinity’s marketplace, which did $820M in volume last month. CryptoPunks came in third, posting $667M in volume on its Larva Labs site.

It’s not just doing well for an NFT marketplace. OpenSea’s August volume matched 16-year-old Etsy’s entire second-quarter volume. The popular arts and crafts site did $3.04B in volume in Q2 2021.

eBay’s average monthly volume sits at roughly $7.3B. OpenSea would only need a 2.5X increase in volume to catch eBay.

Binance.com Added to Investor Alert List by Singapore Regulator  

The Monetary Authority of Singapore, the main financial regulator in that country, has placed Binance.com on its investor alert list. Its country-specific site, Binance.sg, is a separate entity and is not on the list. Last week, Binance.sg hired Richard Teng, the former chief regulatory officer of the Singapore Stock Exchange, as its CEO.

Binance.com has come under regulatory scrutiny and pressure these last several months, with multiple jurisdictions from Europe to Asia making enforcement actions or issuing warnings about the exchange. Additionally, its US entity, Binance.US suffered a blow when recently hired CEO Brian Brooks, also a former regulator, left within a few months. In an interview with The Information this week, Binance.com CEO Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ, said, “regulators around the world are looking at crypto. and when they look at crypto, they do look at us first, given that we are by far the largest player in the market globally.”

In the interview, he also said Binance.US plans to go public within three years.


Recommended Reads

  • Paradigm on the case for leaving FAANG companies for crypto:

  • Travis Kling on Bitcoin price action:

  • Cinneamhain Ventures’s Adam Cochran on yield farming:


On The Pod…

Why the FTX.US/LedgerX Deal Indicates Crypto M&A Might Start Booming

Steven Ehrlich, director of research for digital assets at Forbes, discusses the FTX.US-LedgerX merger, what to expect from FTX going forward, DeFi regulation, and more. Show highlights:

  • why the FTX.US acquisition of derivatives platform LedgerX is significant

  • how FTX.US stacks up against other US cryptocurrency exchanges

  • who should use crypto derivative products

  • how regulators might handle FTX.US and crypto derivative ETFs

  • what to expect from FTX going forward

  • how long FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried spends talking to regulators every day

  • why Steven thinks crypto mergers and acquisitions will be a trend going forward

  • what Steven learned from his conversations with Polygon and Hermez

  • how Fereshteh Forough, a woman living in Afghanistan, is using crypto to help teach women to build dapps, smart contracts, and use crypto


Book Update

My book, The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze, is now available for pre-order now.

The book, which is all about Ethereum and the 2017 ICO mania, comes out Jan. 18. Pre-order it today!

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