Jan 16, 2022
Your weekly Crypto, NFT & Metaverse readings 🚀
Vol 24–10th January — 16th January 2022
🪙 Crypto Market News
PayPal Says It Is ‘Exploring a Stablecoin’ After Dev Discovers It in Code. For years, cryptocurrency has been hailed as a technology that would supplant centralized payment services because it could make transactions cheaper and cut out the financial intermediary. But more and more, those legacy services are looking to incorporate crypto into their toolkits. PayPal confirmed that it is working on its own stablecoin after a developer discovered language about a “PayPal Coin” within its iPhone app. PayPal told Bloomberg the code was part of a hackathon and wouldn’t necessarily be representative of the final version.. 📰 Decrypt
Investing legend Bill Miller has half his portfolio in Bitcoin. Legendary value investor Bill Miller is betting big on bitcoin. The digital currency and some related crypto investments now account for half of his personal investment portfolio. In part two of our interview with Miller, he discusses his rationale for taking such an outsized position, including why he has converted from being a self-described bitcoin “observer” to a bitcoin “bull” and why he is adding to his holdings when the currency has big declines. 📰 Youtube
Grand Theft Auto Maker Take-Two Eyes ‘Web3 Opportunities’ with Zynga Acquisition. Mobile game publisher Zynga made its name on casual smashes like FarmVille and Words With Friends, but the company has recently pivoted towards a future in blockchain-driven NFT games. Today, the firm announced that it will be acquired by gaming giant Take-Two Interactive in a deal valued at $12.7 billion. Take-Two Interactive is the parent company of gaming brands Rockstar Games and 2K Games, which collectively represent massive franchises like Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead Redemption, NBA 2K, and Borderlands. 📰 Decrypt
Citadel Securities’ Silicon Valley funding hints at Crypto. Citadel Securities LLC’s pursuit of Silicon Valley funding may be as much about billionaire Ken Griffin’s firm finally embracing cryptocurrencies as it is about raising money. The Chicago-based electronic market maker revealed a $1.15 billion investment from Sequoia Capital and Paradigm, two venture capital firms with extensive interests in crypto, hinting at Citadel Securities’ potential entry into the space via firms that can help it gain expertise. . 📰 Bloomberg
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🖼️ NFT & Metaverse News
Samsung launches store on Decentraland. Samsung, the Fortune 500 consumer electronics company, recently opened up a storefront at 103,76 in Decentraland. The newly constructed scene is modeled after its physical 837X store located in New York. Samsung is not the first large brand to develop a virtual replica of an existing building in Decentraland. Sotheby’s opened up an auction house mirroring its New Bond Street gallery in London in mid-2021. The storefront will only be available for a limited time and is located in the upper right district called the Aetherian Project. The scene was created by the Last Slice Collective. . 📰 NFT Plazas
Doodles Takes the NFT World by Storm. While the wider crypto world weathers the latest downturn, the NFT side of operations appears to be enjoying itself. Floor prices are up, trading is through the roof, and on-boarders are getting more ETH for their dollar than they have done for months. One collection taking things particularly well is Doodles. Since late December, this unassuming collection of 10k algorithmically generated hand-drawn characters has seen a surge in interest. The floor price is verging on 10 ETH, and the trading volume recently broke 50k ETH. Right now, it’s sitting pretty atop the OpenSea rankings tree. What’s more, keeping up with the more traditional monkey trend, a rare “Golden Ape” Doodle just changed hands for the equivalent of approximately $900k. Notable DJ, Steve Aoki and legendary NFT collector, Snoop Dogg, both hold Doodles in their impressive collections. 📰 NFT Plazas
Steph Curry joined a DAO. LinksDAO is a new DAO looking to finance the purchase of a physical golf course and club by selling NFTs, blockchain-based deeds linked to digital or real assets. In this case, the NFTs represent the right to purchase actual memberships to the future country club. And the floor price of the LinksDAO NFT collection is surging thanks to Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry. On Monday, Curry purchased “Leisure Membership” and “LinksDAO Global Membership” NFTs for 0.29 ETH ($892.13) and 1.12 ETH ($3,442.89). 📰 Decrypt
Other articles that may interest you 🔥
Optimistic rollup vs. ZK rollup
The FAANG of WEB2 is the BESCA of WEB3
NFTs are emerging as a new asset class and why financial institutions should embrace it
What CBDC‘s are and why they matter
