😯📸 A Surprising Snapshot Strategy?
In today’s edition: 🧳 Do Kwon’s ever-changing extradition plans, 🤔 Gemini mulled merging with Genesis, 📲 Tapping into Web3 mobile, and more!
👯♀️ Refer Unchained with a friend and earn a Premium subscription
Union is the first sovereign interoperability layer pioneering trustless bridging between appchains, L1s, and L2s without depending on trusted third parties, oracles, multi-signatures, or MPC. Looking to future-proof blockchain bridging, it is the only protocol that fully addresses the sovereign bridging trilemma, unlocking a horizontally-scaled future.
In this episode, Eric Balchunas, senior ETF Analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, discussed the performance of Bitcoin ETFs since their launch two months ago.
Balchunas noted that the ETFs’ performance exceeded his expectations, with a faster and more intense “second wind” than anticipated. He attributed this to a combination of asset managers buying in, retail interest, and the “ETF effect” where the knowledge of incoming flows encourages non-ETF investors to buy.
Balchunas also predicted that BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF would likely be the most successful of the nine new spot Bitcoin ETFs, while also doubting that any of the smaller issuers would bow out.
He also discussed the potential for spot Ether ETFs, but was less optimistic about their success compared to Bitcoin ETFs.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Fountain, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Or watch it on YouTube.
What’s Poppin’?
by Sage Young, Jeanhee Kim and Sam Sriram
Solana DeFi Protocol Kamino’s Announcement of Airdrop Snapshot Sparks Controversy
Kamino’s airdrop announcement, which boosted the Solana DeFi protocol’s total locked value by over $100 million in the past day, has had mixed reactions, with many criticizing key elements of the plan.
US Plans to Appeal Do Kwon’s Extradition to South Korea: Report
Prosecutors in the US will continue to seek former Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon’s extradition despite Montenegro’s High Court ruling to extradite him to South Korea.
Gemini Considered Merger With Genesis Before Bankruptcy
An email from DCG CEO Barry Silbert in 2022 reveals details of a lunch between himself and Gemini’s Cameron Winklevoss, where the two discussed joining forces to become a “juggernaut” that would compete with Coinbase and FTX.
Cloud-Based Smartphone Application APhone Rolls Out Mainnet on Solana
Solana-based smartphone application APhone’s goal is to make Web3 mobile more accessible and affordable, especially for those in emerging markets.
Daily Bits…✍️✍️✍️
🚘 Blockchain analytics platform Arkham Intelligence claims to have identified the bitcoin addresses for Tesla and SpaceX, combined the two companies own 19,794 bitcoin ($1.3 billion).
🎈The Optimism Foundation announced its selling of 19.5 million tokens ($89.6 million), with a two-year lockup period, to a private buyer, some members of the community pushed back on the sale saying it left them with “a bad taste.”
💸 BlackRock is planning to buy spot bitcoin, via ETFs, for its global allocation fund. In a filing, the firm said it may buy its own ETF (IBIT) as well as those from other providers.
🍣 Community members of decentralized finance app Sushi accused the project’s core team of deleting its governance forum and ignoring snapshot votes, as of late community members had been asking for greater transparency regarding the use of Sushi’s treasury funds.
🤑 Crypto fund Pantera Capital is seeking to raise funds from investors to purchase discounted Solana tokens from the estate of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, looking to pick up the Solana tokens at a 39% discount to the 30-day average price of $59.95.
🇳🇬 Nigeria’s securities regulator has updated guidelines for crypto service providers. Nigeria’s government blocked local access to several crypto exchanges last month.
🎥 A film based on the crypto crimes of Heather “Razzlekhan” Morgan and Ilya “Dutch” Lichtenstein is in the works. Chloë Grace Moretz, Lewis Pullman and Ariana DeBose will star in the film.
Today in Crypto Adoption...
🤝 The Central Bank of Nigeria has entered a partnership with blockchain infrastructure firm Gluwa to promote the adoption of the country’s digital currency, eNaira. Only a few days ago, Binance dropped support for the Nigerian Naira as it faces challenges with regulators in the country.
The $$$ Corner…
💰 Development platform Cosmology secured $5 million in seed funding to provide a full-stack development environment focused on the Cosmos ecosystem.
📊 Bitcoin wallet application Oyl raised $3 million to build a bitcoin-focused trading platform. Backers include BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes and BRC-20 creator Domo.
What Do You Meme?
Recommended Reads
📈 Your Market Update 📉
BTC is up .9%, trading at $67,418
ETH is up 4.4%, trading at $3,950
BTC dominance: 49.10%
Crypto market cap: $2.7T
*All data as of today, 05:42 am ET. Source: CoinGecko
We Are Hiring!
A Sponsorships Manager to grow sponsorships across all its platforms as the publication itself grows. See the details and apply here.
A Bitcoin Reporter to cover all things Bitcoin. See the details and apply here.
A Regulatory Reporter to cover regulatory topics in the space. See the details and apply here.
A Senior Editor to help assign and edit daily news stories, as well as work on features and other editorial projects as needed. See the details and apply here.
An Audience Development Director to broaden the reach of the publication’s content, whether through the web, social media, newsletters, podcast platforms, or videos. See the details and apply here.
🔝 Are you hiring and want to promote the postings in the Unchained newsletter? Let us know!