Terra Redemption Arc?
The markets are still stagnant and range-bound but major events continue to take place within the industry. This week, we have more developments on the ongoing story of LUNA and the Terra blockchain, another Web2 giant releases a crypto wallet, some regulatory pressure hits the StepN protocol, Coindesk announces the release of a token, and we see another set of impressive fund raising rounds take place. So without further ado, let’s get right into it.
Terra 2.0
Last week, Do Kwon, the founder of Terra, announced the release of a new governance proposal in an attempt to revive the Terra blockchain. To sum it up, the proposal suggested the creation of a Terra 2.0. It would be similar to the original Terra blockchain but the UST element would be removed making it operate as a regular layer 1 blockchain similar to the likes of Ethereum, Solana, and Avalanche,
Earlier this week, Terra proposal 1623 passed. This means that the launch of Terra 2.0 was made official and a new chain would be launched later in the week. The old LUNA token would be rebranded to LUNC (LUNA classic) and the new token would be called LUNA. Holders of the old LUNA and UST would be airdropped a portion of the supply in an attempt to help users recuperate their losses.
On May 27th 2022, the official announcement of the new chain Terra 2.0 was made and the users were airdropped the new token. Users can stake their LUNA for 7% APY in their Terra Station wallet and new applications will start launching on Terra 2.0. However, as the coin launched it immediately dropped 90% in price as people instantly sold their tokens in an attempt to recover their funds that were lost in the initial collapse. Regardless of this drawdown, the team at Terra is not giving up so it will be interesting to see what happens with Terra 2.0 in the future.
Gamestop Wallet
Last week, we covered 2 giants in Coinbase and Robinhood announcing the release of their own crypto wallets. It marked a significant step forward in terms of working towards mass adoption by creating an easy to use wallet and giving the masses access to Web 3.
Gamestop followed suit and announced the launch of their very own wallet. The wallet will focus on regular crypto assets as well as NFTs. This will go hand-in-hand with the launch of the NFT marketplace that they are making in collaboration with Immutable X.
The beta version of their wallet is currently available on their website. The video game retail giant continues its pivot into web3 and it will be interesting to see what comes next from them. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/05/23/gamestop-unveils-crypto-and-nft-wallet-shares-up-3/
Coindesk Token
Coindesk is a very popular crypto media outlet. They host a yearly event called consensus and they are hosting one this year as well. At the previous event, they tested the use of a social token to participate in events and earn rewards. The token was called DESK. This year they are bringing the DESK token back and they will make it an official on-chain token.
The overarching purpose of the coin is to build a community around the coindesk brand and enable the community to actively engage with coindesk. The DESK token will be airdropped to registered attendees and will also be distributed through giveaways. At the event, DESK tokens can be earned through things like picking up your badge at check-in, scanning codes displayed across the event, visiting exhibitor booths, participating in chats, and attending certain events. When you have these tokens it can be used for things like getting a drink at the bar, buy food, buy merchandise, buy Coindesk NFTs, unlocking token-gated discord servers, and other unique experiences. So the DESK token can be thought of as a sort of loyalty points program that is native to Coindesk.
StepN regulatory pressure
StepN caught the eye of every crypto participant as well as people outside of the crypto industry. It is a move-to-earn platform. Essentially, a user has to buy the StepN shoe NFT and equip it on the app. After that users can either walk or run and depending on the length of their walk/run they get paid GMT tokens in accordance. The aim is to pay people to stay active and healthy. This application became very popular very quickly. However, a major chunk of their users were from China. StepN wants to remain cooperative with all regulations due to which they decided that users whose GPS location and IP address were in China will be blocked from using the service. The response was a 40% drawdown in the price of GMT and many people have publicly criticized this move as being very anti-decentralization. The exact regulatory concern of operating in China is unclear at the moment. https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/05/26/stepn-to-bar-move-to-earn-for-china-based-users-in-july/
Fundrasing Rounds
As usual, we saw another impressive set of fundraising rounds take place through the week.
Standard Crypto is a venture capital firm that recently raised $500M. The founder stated that they will invest in crypto assets as well as equities. They also expressed interest in supporting certain DAOs and NFT projects but those will make up a minority of their holdings. https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/148537/standard-crypto-raises-new-500-million-fund-axios?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social
A16z is a crypto venture giant that has been in this space for many years. They have been invested in every layer of the crypto stack and they will continue to do so in the future. This week, they announced a new $4.5 billion fund. $1.5B will be allocated to seed investments and $3B will be allocated to venture investment. They will be investing in every single area of crypto with this new fund, be it NFTs, GameFi, DeFi, or infrastructure A16z will most likely be invested in it. A16z has been very instrumental in driving this space forward and it looks like they will continue to do so. https://a16zcrypto.com/crypto-fund-four/
Starkware is a layer 2 rollup which will be built on top off the Ethereum blockchain. Rollups are meant to make Ethereum more scalable i.e. make Ethereum cheaper and faster to use. Starkware uses ZK-rollups or Zero Knowledge rollups as the cornerstone piece of the chain. This week, they announced that they raised a $100M at an $8B valuation in a round led by Tiger Global. With the launch of ETH 2.0 imminent, the rollup chains are likely to do very well, it will be interesting to see how Starkware fairs amongst the competition.
That is all for this week’s serving of the Weekly Crypto Wrap covering all the major events that have taken place in web3 over the week. See you next week!