Latest

NFTs & Web3
LOOT (For Adventurers): The Future or a Return to the Past?
Every day, every block, new Ethereum coins are produced. There is no theoretical maximum to the number that can be produced. At least not at the moment. 117,437,242 of them at the time of writing this script. If you’re a Bitcoin maxi, this is probably your most dependable stick for beating on Eth devotees. Inflation.…

DeFi
Punks or Toadz? Referential Art Project No.1 in 24-Hour Trading Volume
Another day, another NFT project, but with the strong network and idiosyncratic art behind this one, it might be in it for the long haul. The new kid on the block is CrypToadz. At 4,873 ETH, over $15M, in weekly trading volume, the project has quickly vaulted to the tenth slot on OpenSea despite launching…

DeFi
dYdX Drops Over $1B to Past Users in Airdrop
Margin trading protocol dYdX launched its native token with one of the largest distributions in decentralized finance. dYdX dropped 7.5% of its initial billion-strong token supply on Sept 8. At the current price of $11.12, those 75M tokens are worth more than $800M. At one point the airdropped tokens’ value eclipsed $1B. That’s up there…

NFTs & Web3
The Founder of LOOT Wants to Throw Away the Keys to the Contract
The founder of Loot wants to throw out his most magical item: the smart contract keys that govern the nascent game. “I worry that the contract owner is and always will be the de facto authority (‘the church’) on Loot, and that this will ultimately harm the project,” its creator, Dom Hofmann, best known for…

DeFi
Digital Beauty, Asset Flipping, and a Bad Case of the Shakes: Inside the Chase for Art Blocks NFTs
I started chasing Art Blocks NFTs on Aug. 25 during Radix’ Eccentrics 2: Orbits drop. That may sound like gobbledygook to some, but others, including Art Blocks founder Erick Calderon, AKA Snowfro, will know that I picked the worst time to begin my quest to mint generative digital art NFT on the platform. But three…

Education
Jam Session #6: TradFi to DeFi
We’ll be talking with DeFi founders who made the move from big banks in traditional finance into the wild west of crypto. We’ll chat about what it was like leaving their comfy jobs, what convinced them to take the leap, how they’re finding this new world compares with the old one, and what advice they…

Research & Opinion
A Deep Dive on the Lessons and Surprises of the Recent Crash
On-Chain Markets Update by Juan Pellicer, IntoTheBlock DeFi protocols, apps and their stablecoins are a key area of the whole crypto markets. Even though the average daily trading values of DeFi are 80 times lower than in centralized exchanges, their smart contracts enable open financial services that impact the whole market by providing key functionalities…

Blockchains
Terraform Labs Creates $150M Fund to Advance Inter-blockchain Communication
Blockchain communities may never get along on Crypto Twitter, but that doesn’t mean the blockchains themselves can’t. Striving towards a world where all blockchains can seamlessly communicate, Terraform Labs has put forward $150M worth of its LUNA tokens. They are calling the fund Project Dawn. Terraform Labs (TFL) is behind the Terra blockchain, which makes…

DeFi
Harmony Opens the Throttle on Layer 1 with $300M Fund for Myriad Projects
The Layer 1 blockchain Harmony unveiled a $300M ecosystem fund today to back startups working on applications and protocols. There are many large blockchains now, but to a certain degree each one is a bit of a walled garden, Stephen Tse, Harmony’s founder told The Defiant, via a spokesperson. “Harmony was purpose-built so that developers…

Research & Opinion
Opolis Deal Deepens Venture Capitalists' Love Affair with DAOs
You probably missed it. It was a deal that didn’t involve a big NFT marketplace or a new decentralized crypto exchange. Yet the vote by members of Opolis, a digital employment cooperative, to launch a DAO is significant. Why? Because it’s the latest instance of venture capitalists’ love affair with decentralized autonomous organizations. It also…
