The Crypto Super Bowl
NounsDAO, the Bitfinex $3.6bn hack, MrBeast and...
Hey there đ ,
I donât usually feature funding announcements, but I had to talk about Alchemy & Polygon. Also, a couple of great threads on the Bitfinex hack & MrBeastâs 3-step framework for growth.
You donât have to read everything, just skim through whatâs interesting for you and reply back with your feedback.
Living In Beta is a digest of interesting things I find each week, and any new posts from me. If this is your first issue, welcome!
You can subscribe below:
đ Articles of the week:
đ The Nouns are going to the Super Bowl
One of the most hotly anticipated events of the year is upon us. No, weâre not talking about the Winter Carnival happening in Brixton this weekendâŚ
Itâs đ Super Bowl Sunday đ !
Iâm not going to pretend Iâm nearly as hyped as probably my friends across the Atlantic, nor have I ever watched a Super Bowl Live (itâs past 11pm in the UK on a Sunday night đ´), but even I can recognize itâs a big deal.
Not just for the game itself, either - a lotaaa people tune in solely for the commercials - and this year, a lotaaa people will see crypto take center stage.
One of the most interesting partnerships recently has been between Bud Light & Nouns DAO - Bud Light, of Budweiser fame. Nouns DAO, is an experimental project started in August 2021 on the Ethereum blockchain. The nouns are NFTs based on people, places and things - only one is generated per day and all the art is open-sourced.
With Bud Light introducing a new zero-carb beer line, they wanted to break traditional convention (kudos!) & combine their NFT momentum (they launched an NFT collection themselves in November 2021) with a standout crypto partnership.
My take: While most people wonât even notice this on the big screen, it shows that big brands and crypto projects can play well together - for a project thatâs only 6 months old & prides itself on its open-sourced IP, to be playing with a major hitter on a world stage? Not bad.
đ¸ Alchemy & Polygon raising ďźďźďź
𧪠Alchemy:
I wouldnât usually write about a fundraise (because you can find stuff like this anywhere else), but I wanted to give my take on what this means.
First off, Alchemy provides the infrastructure to developers to build apps easily on the Blockchain. After raising in October at a $3.5bn, itâs now valued at $10bn after raising $200m.
I believe the âAPI economyâ is thriving and will continue to grow as we move towards a more software-driven world. Iâm very bullish that API-first companies will thrive and even more so when developing Decentralized applications (or âDappsâ) on the Blockchain.
Developers will need easier ways to deploy applications faster & Alchemy sits at the right intersection of these areas. Another that Iâm bullish on is ThirdWeb.
đˇ Polygon:
From 0 â> $20bn in 3 yearsâŚnot bad, not bad.
Polygon solves one of the biggest problems with the blockchain - fees & scaling.
Blockchains sell blocks, and Ethereumâs blocks are EXPENSIVE. The average cost of transacting (e.g. buying your latest JPEG with Ethereum) has shot up to $100+. Imagine having to pay $100 every time you wanted to use your credit card - insane.
To solve this challenge, we have Layer 2âs (or L2s). Polygon is a Layer 2 thatâs built on Ethereum to benefit from Ethereumâs network effects, but also add its own level of security and scalability. It also just raised $400m, at a $20bn valuation đ.
Polygon seems like itâs one of the standout L2âs, having been on a hiring spree as of late & is launching over 15k NFTs per week on the network.
My take: Last year, over $30bn was ploughed into crypto projects - Iâm sure weâre going to see 2022 smash through this, especially with more talent entering the space.
đŚ Tweets of the week:
The âhackersâ behind that Bitfinex hack:
Iâm very..very reluctant to call them âhackersâ, especially when I see videos they willingly posted like this:
The TLDR:
In 2016, a hacker gained access to Bitfinex and stole 119k of Bitcoin (this is worth around $3.6bn in todayâs prices)
Bitfinex slashed account balances of their existing customers to stay solvent, with a promise to reimburse them if the funds are ever recovered.
The authorities always knew which wallets the funds were in, but never knew who was behind those accounts.
The couple behind the accounts attempted to launder the money via purchasing $500 gift cards from Walmart
More to the story in Jackâs thread.
NFT use cases:
A few good examples of how NFTs will be used - here are my top three:
Art â> being able to buy & reward digital artists
Gaming â> In-game NFTs enable gamers to purchase and own their in-game assets (that they can use in OTHER games!)
Identity â> Using single/unique identifiers across multiple products makes our life a lot easier
MrBeastâs 3-part framework for growth:
The 3 key things from a 23-year-old YouTuber with 90m YouTube subscribers:
Capture attention (via thumbnails, titles and a great hook)
Keep attention (he has a 70% watch time from start to end)
Keep quality at 10/10 (control what you can control)
Thereâs a ton of lessons in Dickieâs thread, so Iâd highly recommend reading all the way through.
Until next time
As always, if you're enjoying Living In Beta, I'd love it if you shared it with a friend or two. If anything stood out, whether good or bad, I would love to hear about it. Reply to this email or tweet at me and letâs chat.
Until next time,
Fahim