GM - this is The Snapshot, edition #115.
This is what I’ve got for you this week:
This Week In NFT World - $40M Raised For New Dog Coin
Sponsored Post - Lil Nouns fund 0.5 ETH Insta Visual Media Curation
Notable Sales - Coldie, Ringers, CryptoPunk, DarkFarms, OrdRock
Investor Focus - 3 Reflections After My First Hack
For sponsorship enquires, please DM me on Twitter.
Have a great day,
B
This Week In NFT World - $40M raised so far with $BOBAOPPA presale
One of the most prominent collectors/traders/internet entrepreneurs on NFT twitter, Machi Big Brother, this week raised $40M simply by posting a contract address and a photo of his dog.
Check the SOL wallet with it all in.
Why would people send money to him for the presale?
Machi is known for his wealthy NFT/crypto positions
He has lost millions of dollars farming the Blur NFT lending protocol and seemingly does not care at all - thus emphasising the first point lol
He’s a character that people either love or love to hate - so always getting a lot of attention
People like dogs
People are degenerates / in super risk on mode and hope their investment in the presale will turn into much more when they receive their $BOBAOPPA coins
All completely normal behaviour!
I really don’t know where this one goes - so many people bought in that I don’t know who else would buy in after when it goes live.
We wait and see…
Azuki announces Animechain in collaboration with Arbitrum
"With our anime productions, games, and physical products, we will showcase the power of a decentralized model for growing IP on AnimeChain."
Details from @Azuki
Everyone seems to be building their own chain now.
AnimeChain by Azuki will hope to bring Anime culture to everyone via their own chain and token.
Azuki price pumped before the news before retracing after. Classic NFT market behaviour.
Squiggle DAO takes out a $1M loan through Zharta Finance
NFT Finance continues to show that for the most blue chip of assets there is demand from lenders to lend at attractive rates for borrowers.
Some pretty impressive stats provided here on the iconic Squiggles (although it should be noted their price has been sliding down in ETH for some time).
"One trait of a beloved and seminal art project is its ability to be a true long term store of value. Over the past couple years Squiggles have been used in over 1,000 loans, doing over $40M USD in volume, and with durations up to 5 years. That type of conviction on an art collection less than 4 years old means something. The largest Squiggle loan to date was 75 wETH (~$90,118 USD on date of transaction). Today we blew that record out of the park."
Thoughts from @squiggleDAO
BTC reclaims $70k
After a real dip the week before, BTC recovered this week and reclaimed $70k.
Sentiment felt pretty calm this week. No particular euphoria on the BTC rise back up to previous ATH.
Reading that: we are getting more comfortable in this range and ready to go higher soon as it appears the leverage has been flushed out of the system.
Primitives 10x on Base from 0.04 ETH to 0.4 ETH on Base
And then they retraced to 0.15 ETH.
This is like those NFT market 2021 vibes when someone influential suggests something is good and everyone piles in - and the people at the end of the line get rekt.
I saw a funny tweet this week which suggested that Jesse Pollak was the Gary Vee of Base NFTs: the thinking being that as the leader of the Base ecosystem (Coinbase’s L2), people are looking out for what he and the base contributors say in order to follow them in to something.
I think this is natural when people are less familiar on a new chain/in a new environment.
What it shows is:
People are definitely looking for things to do on Base
Leaders definitely want to encourage the cultural layer (NFTs/memecoins) on their chains
Sponsored Post - Lil Nouns fund 0.5 ETH Insta Visual Media Curation
Lil Nouns DAO has passed a 0.5 ETH proposal to curate visual media on Instagram.
What are the details?
Lil Nouner travsap asked for 0.5eth for the next 12 months for visual media tracking, curation and posting (with captions and tags) to the @lilnouners Instagram account. And the DAO were very happy to fund trav!
Trav had already delivered:
180 visual media posts
50+ reels; and
Hundreds of stories highlighting and clarifying the Nounish community's worldwide activations
Moreover, in the last 30 days, Lil Nouns visual media reached 2k+ accounts and made 7500+ impressions.
Pretty cool! And a great example of how Lil Nouns DAO is willing to support builders from within the DAO to do great things!
If you are curious about contributing to a cutting-edge DAO and getting paid to bring your ideas to life: check out our website.
Notable Sales - Coldie, Ringers, CryptoPunk, DarkFarms, OrdRock
Coldie, Warren Buffet - 37 ETH
Dmitri Cherniak, Ringers - 32 ETH
CryptoPunk, Gold Chain - 59.68 ETH
DarkFarms Inscription - 19M $BOME ($273,000)
Ordrock - 2.98 BTC ($200,000)
Investor Focus - 3 Reflections After My First Hack
Thought I lost 12E in Munchables after the $62M hack of the new gaming protocol on Blast.
The North Korean dev who was pressured to give back the funds
It was fortunately saved from the anon North Korean dev to whom the team had outsourced their contract work without checking (i) his identity; and (ii) auditing his work.
I've never been to an expensive business school but I thought I had just paid my tuition lol. Now that it looks like funds are safe, here are my reflections:
1. Don't follow big accounts necessarily
Big accounts can sometimes provide some validation, but they are also playing with capital you can't imagine. Think they've done DD on their 20k investment. Why? If 20k is not material to them then in a bull market it is not unreasonable for them to ape first and think after.
2. Size appropriately to risk manage
We know everything we do in this space has risk, so it would be unwise to have all your cash in one or two protocols. One thing I think about is:
What proportion of my ETH is liquid? What proportion of my ETH is staked? What proportion of my ETH is on L2s? What proportion of my ETH is in 'safe' protocols? What proportion of my ETH is in more risky/newer protocols? What proportion of ETH in JPEGs?
You need to like these percentages to know you are risk managed.
3. Cornering an individual and blocking path out is not a W for decentralisation
Seen a few takes that Blast had two options: roll back the chain OR do nothing and let the hacker have the funds cos decentralisation.
A third take (which is what happened) was use other tactics to convince hacker to return funds. Think this was done by closing all bridges and establishing comms with hacker.
Whilst I think this is a great solution, I would not go so far as to say this is a W for decentralisation.
It's the equivalent of USA saying we won't freeze your funds but we will also not let them out of our payment rails - this is high centralisation.
In the end there has to be a more nuanced take than full decentralisation vs freeze everything/roll back chain.
When I think about the establishment of empires (which I liken to the creation and development of blockchains) there is always a rule of law.
It is arguable that one of the British Empire's greatest exports is its rule of law (putting aside the other pros and cons of empire for a second).
The point being: empires will not thrive without rule of law.
People need to feel justice will be done. I think justice was done in this case
Have a great day,
B
Disclaimer: The content covered in this newsletter is not to be considered as investment advice. It is for informational and educational purposes only.
I hold some of the NFTs mentioned in these newsletters