💸Web3 VCs Pile In On Bitcoin Mining Ventures

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TLDR Monthly crypto VC funding jumped $1B to $1.75B in November, with two emerging Bitcoin mining firms making up more than half of the total with $970M combined. Other notable raises included Blockchain.com and Blast.

SO WHAT The impressive raises by Bitcoin miners Northern Data and Phoenix Group are the latest sign that BTC is driving the current bullish momentum in the digital asset markets. The milestone comes as pundits tip the first U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF will soon receive regulatory approval, and less than out from the fourth Bitcoin halving event.

READ MORE: Crypto VC Funding Surges In November

TLDR Starknet airdrop speculation is at a fever pitch after screenshots of a now-deleted starknet.io subdomain went viral. The document outlines five different eligibility criteria for the STRK token, with the notable exception of Starknet network users.

SO WHAT The screenshot comes three weeks after Starknet launched its governance hub, and coincided with the project's first test proposal going live. A contract for the STRK token was launched on Ethereum last November, with tokens locked up until at least April 15, 2024.

Read More: Starknet Airdrop Speculation Surges After Purported Eligibility Screenshot Goes Viral

TLDR The United Nations Development Programme commissioned the Algorand Foundation to develop an educational curriculum on web3. The Algorand Blockchain Academy will focus on practical applications for web3 technologies in the context of sustainable development.

SO WHAT The course will begin rolling out to the UNDP's more than 22,000 staff worldwide starting next quarter. The UN is no stranger to blockchain launching, launching more than a dozen web3 initiatives over the past five years.

Read More: United Nations Taps Algorand To Develop Web3 Education For UN Staff

TLDR The Rari Foundation, the team behind the Rarible NFT marketplace, has unveiled a Layer 3 network leveraging Arbitrum's Orbit solution. The network will natively enforce on-chain royalties for NFT creators at the node level.

SO WHAT RARI Chain's announcement follows fierce debate within the NFT community over whether to enforce on-chain royalties for NFT creators. In July, Nansen reported that royalty payouts had slumped to a two-year low after Blur and OpenSea, the two largest NFT marketplaces, made creator royalties optional for traders.

Read More: RARI Foundation Launches Layer 3 Blockchain With Embedded Royalties

TLDR Rampant Bitcoin speculation is having little effect on long-term investors, with the number of BTC stashed away by long-term hodlers tagging new highs after trending up for more than two years. For comparison, the number of coins held by short-term traders is at a ten-year low.

SO WHAT The data indicates a longstanding trend of short-term BTC speculators increasingly graduating into long-term accumulators. Data also shows that U.S.-based investors are holding increasingly larger positions, while the position sizing of traders operating on international platforms is in decline.

Read More: Disparity Between Bitcoin HODLers and Daytraders Hits Record

TLDR The perpetrator of the recent $48M hack that rocket KyberSwap is making extreme demands of their victim. The attacker's latest message included demands that KyberSwap forfeit all assets, company information, and control over the KyberDAO.

SO WHAT The message, which came eight days after the hack, was poorly received by the Kyber and web3 community. "Lmao. The dude is unhinged," said Mudit Gupta of Polygon Labs. "Hostile protocol takeover, that's a new one," chimed in Stani Kulechov, the founder of Aave.

Read More: 'Unhinged' Kyber Hacker Demands Complete Control Over the DEX

TLDR Aragon has shipped its DAO management software, Aragon OSx, on Arbitrum, the leading Ethereum Layer 2 network. “Arbitrum communities can now launch a DAO in under 10 minutes and manage their assets in a transparent and user-friendly app,” the Aragon OSx team said.

SO WHAT The product launch comes despite bitter infighting hanging over Aragon, with ANT tokenholders voting to take legal action against the Aragon Association. The association announced it would soon dissolve and launched token redemptions in exchange for 87% of non-treasury assets. However, some tokenholders took exemption with the association unilaterally designing the plan without consulting token-based governance.

Read More: Aragon Ships Its Tech To Arbitrum Despite Bitter Project Infighting

• Ethereum's Goerli testnet to shut down after Dencun fork
• Binance offers U.S treasury bill exposure to institutional users
• DYDX supply increases 80% after $505M unlock

• Binance’s VIP Traders Got Sneak Peek of Record US Crypto Penalty (Bloomberg)
• Tether’s circulating supply increased by 4.5 billion USDT in November (CryptoSlate)
• Ark Invest continues Coinbase selling streak, offloads $15 million for the week (The Block)