📝#77: Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire
📝#77: Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire
Hey, it’s Marc. ✌️
Your 100% signal on Web3 this week:
SEC wants innovation “sandbox” for on-chain trading
BlackRock and Citadel plan to launch a new national stock exchange
Coinbase introduces Smart Wallets
Robinhood acquires Bitstamp: Challenger to Coinbase?
Kraken’s upcoming IPO
Nvidia’s power play with a new AI chip
Consensus 2024 highlights
Christiano Ronaldo’s failed NFT sale
The Sandbox raises $20M
Let’s dive in. 🦈 | Read time: 4min
📚 Top 5 Reads
Food and Drink Brands in Gaming. By GEEIQ. Link
How We’re Thinking About AI. By Variant. Link
The state of AI in early 2024. By McKinsey & Company. Link
A marketplace for algorithms. By Jack Dorsey. Link
LLMs and AI agents get on-chain (audio). By Chain Reaction. Link
Pudgy Penguins: A Blueprint for Community-Led Brands. By Marc Baumann. Link
Boson Protocol – Real Web3 Commerce, with Web2 UX
As the next bull market emerges, so does a new crypto-rich, Web3-savvy demographic, who are demanding authentic Web3 commerce experiences. Uniquely, with Boson, you can sell physical things as NFTs, with a slick Web2 experience while running on a fully decentralized Web3 backend. No more Web3 washing required!
✨ Web3 & Consumer
Consensus 2024: All Eyes on Regulation🇺🇸
Consensus 2024, one of the biggest crypto & web3 conferences, wrapped up in Austin last week. It was highly political.
Highlights:
U.S. Independent Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, advocated for recognition of decentralized currencies like Bitcoin, followed by a statement on Trump verdict on X.
A16z Crypto's Chris Dixon announced a $25M donation to Fairshake PAC to support pro-crypto candidates.
Cathie Wood, CEO of ARK Invest, stated that the approval of ether ETFs is due to crypto becoming a significant election issue
The CEO of Ripple ($45M contributor to Fairshake PAC) anticipates more crypto ETFs, including for XRP, Solana, and Cardano
Zooming in: Fairshake PAC is a pro-crypto political action committee that aims to support political candidates who favor responsible regulation of the crypto industry
Beyond Regulation: Goldman Sachs' Mathew McDermott emphasized tokenization's potential and called Bitcoin ETF approval as the "big psychological turning point.”
Punchline: The mood at Consensus 2024 was optimistic, driven by ETH ETF approval, FIT21 and a heating political debate in the US.
More on Web3:
Animoca Brands introduced Japanese NFT marketplace, SORAH. SORAH is designed to cater to the unique preferences and regulatory requirements of the Japanese market, offering a curated selection of NFTs from local creators and brands. Link
Coinbase introduced Smart Wallets. It allows onboarding with simple passkeys and enables gasless experiences. Link
Magic Eden unveils new analytics pages for Bitcoin Runes, with chart integration into collection pages. It’s the leading marketplace for Runes, next to OKX and Unisat. Link
Christiano Ronaldo sells only $10k NFTs in latest drop. Again: We’ve moved beyond simple NFT drops. Link
🌎 Crypto & Macro
Where there’s smoke💨 there’s fire🔥
Backed by BlackRock and Citadel Securities, TXSE Group plans to launch the Texas Stock Exchange in Dallas
Armed with a hefty $120M in funding, TXSE plans to file for US SEC registration later this year, commence trading in 2025, and unveil its initial listings by 2026.
Why it matters: These are of the largest asset managers in the world.
The TXSE is challenging NYSE and NASDAQ and could potentially run on a distributed ledger infrastructure, potentially Ethereum or Base.
Larry Fink (CEO of BlackRock) has been talking about tokenization for the last 2 years. And the market is huge.
Only last year:
J.P. Morgan started tokenising funds as a proof-of-concept Link
Standard Chartered investment arm launches tokenization platform, “Libeara”. Link
Singapore Central Bank started tokenization pilots. Link
By the numbers:
AB Bernstein projects $5 trillion in assets could be tokenized over the next five years.
Boston Consulting Group (BCG) estimated tokenized assets could reach $16 trillion by 2030.
Meanwhile: SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce wants to create a "sandbox" for issuing, trading and settlement of securities on a distributed ledger.
In the same months it approved an Ethereum ETF.
Punchline: Where there’s smoke there’s fire. Usually.
More on Crypto:
Robinhood, the popular stock and crypto trading app, is set to acquire Bitstamp, one of the oldest crypto exchanges, for $200M in 2025. This is major news and part of a bigger consolidation trend. Link
Kraken in talks for pre-IPO fundraising round, IPO expected in 2025. They’ve been preparing for this for years. Link
Eigenlayer surpasses $20BN in TVL, becomes 2nd largest DeFi protocol. Link
The Sandbox raises $20M in convertible debt at $1B valuation, $SAND spikes. Link
Biden vetoes pro-crypto bill. Link
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🎮 Gaming
Mythical Games announced a partnership with Pudgy Penguins to build an icy new mobile party game. Link
🧠AI
Nvidia’s Power Play 💪
Nvidia unveiled its next generation of AI chips, just months after announcing its previous model.
It’s the next iteration of high-bandwidth memory and will be released in 2026.
Not just any chip:
Nvidia plans to release a new AI chip every year with ‘Blackwell Ultra’ in 2025, and ‘Rubin’ in 2026, following ‘Rubin Ultra’ in 2027.
Rubin architecture, featuring 8-Hi HBM4 stacks, is expected to debut with R100 CPUs.
Rubin strengthens the market position of Nvidia as it has an estimated 80% market share in AI chips.
Why it’s important: By bringing powerful AI training capabilities to the edge, Rubin can enable a wider range of devices and applications to utilize advanced AI models.
This enables new possibilities in areas like autonomous vehicles, robotics, and healthcare.
Meanwhile: Nvidia flips Apple as stock hits $3 Trillion market cap amid AI boom. Link
🏗️ Start-ups & Tools to watch
Certhis: The all-in-one Web3 Infrastructure to democratize brands' Web3 adoption to create new interaction, communication, with their community. Link *
*partner of FiftyOne Insights
💰 Money Moves
Babylon: Bitcoin staking project raises $70M led by Paradigm. Link
Chainge: Secures $13M investment from GEM Digital and Alpha Token Capital. Link
Twelve Labs Inc: Nvidia co-led a $50M round for an AI startup focused on video search. Link
The Sandbox: Metaverse gaming platform has raised $20M at $1B valuation. Link
That’s all for now, folks. Stay tuned for more on Memecoins and the big crypto consolidation.
Talk soon,
– Marc
PS: Follow me on LinkedIn and X for shorter insights.
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