What's $3.5 Billion Among a Few Friends?
What's $3.5 Billion Among a Few Friends?
The top 5 most important stories in crypto...and more!
Headline Roundup
Crypto VC fund Hashed lost up to $3.5 Billion on Luna investment
BitMEX Co-founder, Arthur Hayes faces 6-months of home detention
Spotify to begin letting artists promote NFTs on their profiles
Gamestop, Coinbase, Ledger, and Robinhood all plan to expand their Web3 offering by building Web3 wallets and browsers
It was Bitcoin Pizza day last weekend!
1. Crypto VC fund Hashed lost up to $3.5 Billion on Luna investment
Last week we spoke about the devastating losses many experienced as a result of the LUNA and UST decline. Just as a reminder, LUNA, and UST were two of the top 10 largest cryptos and both are now worthless.
Now things have settled we are able to see who was hit the hardest. One big name would be the Korean VC fund Hashed. Hashed is well known for being one of Korea’s leading crypto VC funds. On-chain data shows they had $3.5 Billion staked away in Luna, all of which is worth as good as nothing.
2. BitMEX Co-founder, Arthur Hayes faces 6-months of home detention
BitMEX is well known for offering clients 100X leverage, pioneering perpetual futures, and getting into trouble with the US government. The founders of BitMEX and the company were charged with Illegally operating a crypto exchange and failing to implement anti-money laundering features. Last week, co-founder Arthur Hayes was sentenced to 6-months of home detention and 2 years of probation.
3. Spotify to begin letting artists promote NFTs on their profiles
Last week we wrote about Instagram slowly testing NFTs on their app, allowing a select few creators to connect their wallets and show off NFTs. Now Spotify has entered the arena. Currently on Spotify artists can promote merch, and tickets to their shows, now the promotion of NFTs is being tested. Steve Aoki and The Wombats are the first two artists taking part in this experiment.
4. Gamestop, Coinbase, Ledger, and Robinhood all plan to expand their Web3 offering by building Web3 wallets and browsers
Wallets are the key to the crypto world, without them, you cannot interact with, play games, make purchases or secure your assets. The 4 companies above are all geared toward retail users, they are clearly betting on increased Web3 usage and with that are building the picks for the next crypto gold rush.
5. It was Bitcoin Pizza day last weekend!
Bitcoin pizza day is May 22nd, it commemorates the first time (allegedly) that bitcoins were used to make a real-world purchase. Back in 2010, an early Bitcoin miner spent 10,000 Bitcoins on two pizzas. The guy offered 10,000 bitcoins to anybody that was willing to deliver the two pizzas to him at his home. The pizzas were from Papa John’s and sent by a fellow forum user. Those 10,000 bitcoins today are worth around $300 million.
What are we reading?
If you want an overview of where the industry currently stands, this is a great read.
This one is written by me, in this I talk about a new token standard that may be coming to Ethereum and some of the potential use cases
Megathread on Milady (NFT) and their founders
This thread is a bit dark but highlights some awful stories behind the people that made the Milady NFT series, the creepy bug-eyed anime looking profile pictures
Fun corner
This incredibly catchy song…
The guy in the picture runs one of the biggest crypto ponzi schemes
