Hi everyone, another amazing week in the blockchain space where we are all witness to the fast-paced, fun-filled events in person or online. As always, this newsletter starts off with events and then gets into some news we were seeing during the week. If you’ve not already subscribed, please do so below so we can keep sharing our insights with you.
Events
Kicking it off with another great week of events. It just goes to show how even in a bear market, there’s still a tonne of activity. In many ways, it’s actually better to build in a bear market because there’s a lot less hype and unnecessary noise with investors, builders and other interest groups. So in chronological order, here’s what kept me busy last week
NotCentralised ran a StarkNet meetup event on Tuesday (thanks to Mercari). If you didn’t already know, StarkWare (company behind StarkNet) provides the layer 2 scaling solution that Immutable’s tech is built on. We had an amazing crowd from Devs to Lawyers and more. Even a special guest appearance from the CEO of StarkWare, Uri Kolodny, dialling in from Israel. We just put out the video on YouTube and you can also check out some of the Twitter posts below too
On Wednesday, it was our monthly Aus DeFi meetup where we saw the likes of Mycelium, Londex and folks from our community presenting. The video for this will be out next week but for now you can check out some Tweets here
Also on Wednesday, I got to chat with ausbiz on their Cracking Crypto show which is on every day at around 1:20pm - the video is available here (sign up is free) https://www.ausbiz.com.au/media/building-in-a-bear-market?videoId=23876
On Thursday it was off to Fishburners to do a lunch and learn which can be rewatched here (sign up is free) https://fishburners.org/opportunities/fishburners-live-register/
Oh and it was my birthday Monday. Big 4-0 for anyone counting at home. In some ways web3 keeps us so busy that you’d think it ages people but there’s so much exciting things going on that I’d say it keeps me feeling young. The jury is out on that for sure!
News
It was a mix of positive and negative news in the world of crypto this week (nothing new really!). On the positive side we see more signs of mainstream usage of crypto with a metaverse category being included at the MTV Video Music Awards (BlackPink won the award). More here https://915thebeat.com/news/9092218/blackpink-bring-on-the-pink-venom-in-vmas-debut-performance/
On the downside, we saw issues surrounding Ethereum Naming Services (ENS) which many people use as an easier address to remember than the 0x ETH addresses that are set by default. The issue is that an important function of ENS sits with a developer who is in jal and unable to access this. As powerful a concept that decentralisation is, there are still elements of weakness which can be exploited like this. More here
Additionally, we saw the SEC seem to crack down on the definitions of what is and isn’t a token. As noted in this CoinDesk article, one crypto lawyer sees their interpretations as “ominously expansive”. Again, this is in contrast with how Commonwealth Treasury in Australia is looking at it’s token mapping consultation - https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/08/27/sec-questions-grayscales-legal-stance-on-stellar-zcash-and-horizen-crypto-trusts/
There was also crypto in local mainstream news with Crypto.com accidentally refunding $10m to an Australian customer when it was meant to be only $100. The legal recourse on this is going to be interesting to claw this one back given the lack of regulation in this space. “Fortune favours the brave” the famous catchphrase of the company, may not work out so well in this instance.
Over in Europe, we saw more limitations being proposed this time on US stablecoins according ot the new set of MICA limits being spoken of. More here from CoinDesk
If you’re into your censorship resistance chatter then there’s also this piece from Justin Drake over at Bankless that came out at the start of the week and is well worth a watch
Finally, it was nice to see this piece out from CoinDesk featuring local lawyer and blockchain stalwart, Michael Bacina, discussing Commonwealth Treasury’s new exploration into CBDC possible use cases as well as how Australia punches well above it’s weight in the crypto space. See more below
DATA
The weekly top 10 from CoinGecko shows that not much has really happened at that top end of town
In the NFT space it’s been interesting to look at OpenSea volume (in terms of US dollars) which are often cited across the news showing how precipitous the drop has been. At levels of daily USD volume we’re seeing, it’s hovering around 90% or less than the volumes we saw earlier in the year (around March)
However, when we look at the number of trades occurring, the levels now are only down 60% of what we were seeing before.
The quick takeaway here is that whilst value has dropped off a cliff, we haven't seen those flipping NFTs drop off as much as volumes would lead us to believe. The number of trades is a better insight to look at because volumes take into account the price drop too.
This makes sense when we see that across Twitter (and in real life events), the interest in this space has remained strong. The use cases for NFTs right now are in their genesis. We’re definitely going to see a lot more in the space so keep an eye out folks.
Check out more in this dashboard available here https://dune.com/PierreYves_Gendron/opensea---metrics
Anyway, that’s it for this week. More to come next week so stay tuned and stay safe out there.