#77 How Zuck trolled Elon with Threads launch
Mark Zuckerberg launches a Twitter-clone and knows it: the lowdown
GM - this is The Snapshot, edition #77.
Welcome to the new subscribers this week - we are now at 1,877 subscribers!
I write about NFTs/crypto, and solopreneurship in web3.
This is what I’ve got for you:
This Week In NFT/Crypto World - NFT market capitulates $1.46B
Notable Sales - Fidenza, Memeland, Videodrome, RarePepe Nakamoto
Creator Corner - How Zuck trolled Elon with Threads launch
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Disclaimer: The content covered in this newsletter is not to be considered as investment advice. It is for informational and educational purposes only.
Have a great day,
B
This Week In NFT/Crypto World - NFT market capitulates $1.46B
BlackRock CEO becomes a Bitcoin Bull
The $9 trillion asset manager BlackRock flipped bullish this week, describing Bitcoin as “digital gold” & an “international asset”.
Interestingly, a few years ago Mr Fink said Bitcoin was “an index of money laundering”.
I wonder why the change?
Maybe something to do with the ETFs they need to sell to the market (about which we spoke here some weeks ago…)
NFT market loses $1.46B in savage capitulation
TylerD estimated that $1.46B was lost from the NFT market capitulation in the last week or so.
What on earth happened?
Well, we spoke about how Azuki made a $37M NFT mistake last week: they minted 20,000 NFTs for a cost of $37M - and the NFTs turned out to be so similar to the original NFTs that everyone hated it.
So the market dumped.
And because so many of those NFTs were leveraged (via NFT lending protocols) it caused a liquidation cascade so severe that the main Azuki collection collapsed from approximately $32,000 each to $12,000 each - in just a few days.
And then this activity crashed the whole market.
Not a fun ride for the casual investor!
We seem to have stabilised now with a lot of leverage flushed out of the ecosystem - but nevertheless the market feels wounded.
(If you want to learn more about NFT lending, some time ago I wrote a short summary here.)
Blur Liquidity Provider Pulls $15M+…only to bring it back the next day
Blur - the biggest NFT marketplace and liquidity provider - announced that (i) they would facilitate trait bidding and (ii) it’s programme to incentivise bidding on NFTs would continue indefinitely.
This caused some liquidity providers to think - this is b*?!!s(&!
The liquidity providers had hoped the incentivised bidding would come to an end for this season - so they would be given their $BLUR token - which they could dump for real ETH or USD.
That was not the case - so the biggest liquidity provider pulled $15M from the pool.
The tweet by Liam Herbst
Aside from the lack of end in sight, he gave a few other reasons for rage quitting:
The tweet by Sir Wirtz
And yet…he was back by the next day (with a smaller pool of funds): it feels very much that people are addicted to this market!
A final interesting point to ponder.
Many people argue about whether or not Blur’s incentivised bidding has decreased floor prices.
NFTStats provided this helpful chart to demonstrate that one of the most premium assets, the CryptoPunk, stayed within a tight trading range for the 200 days before Blur’s incentivised bidding - and thereafter began to tank in price post-incentivised bidding.
This suggests a few things to me (with a few caveats)
The most premium assets
May be underpriced
And may rise once incentivised bidding stops
But only after a period of time where the market gets to “work through” the glut of short sellers
If the damage has not already been done (NFTs are more attractive the more expensive they are; if they have fallen too much, they may never recover)
Hope that’s some food for thought.
Notable Sales - Fidenza, Memeland, Videodrome, RarePepe Nakamoto
Tyler Hobbs, Fidenza - 72.5 ETH ($142,000)
Memeland, Captainz - 36.69 ETH ($72,000)
Videodrome, AI Generated Nude Portrait #7 - 175 ETH ($344,000)
RarePepe, Nakamoto Card - 53 ETH ($103,000)
Azuki Golden Skateboard Shrine - 135 ETH ($261,000)
Creator Corner - How Zuck trolled Elon with Threads launch
With his first tweet in 11 years, CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, trolled Elon on Twitter to mark the launch of his Twitter-clone, Threads.
But what is Threads and why does it matter for creators?
Let’s go.
What is Threads?
Threads is a new app by Meta for sharing text updates and joining public conversations
Access comes via an Instagram account
Posts can be up to 500 characters long and include links, photos, and videos up to 5 minutes in length
Feeds include threads posted by people you follow, and recommended content from new creators you haven’t discovered yet
It is made to be easily shareable to Instagram
Why does Threads matter for creators?
Threads is linked to Instragram accounts. And Instragram has billions of users.
In the end, creators are largely agnostic about platforms: we have to go where the attention goes.
Threads represents a huge opportunity for existing creators on Instagram to diversify their content to the written word; and extends an olive branch to the writers on Twitter to get into the Zuckverse.
My take
It’s not obvious to me that all apps can become the “everything” app: Twitter was brilliant as writer-focused; Instagram great for photos; Tik Tok great for short form content.
Elon has spoken a great deal about his admiration for WeChat in China (in essence an “everything app”); Zuck now wants to add more writing to Instragram’s sibling, Threads.
What if TikTok tries to add writing next? Would it work?
I think creators need to remain agnostic and go where the attention flows.
Whilst there have been many Twitter clones before, there have been none before with the inbuilt user base of Instagram.
We simply cannot tell the future - particularly as Twitter has been so turbulent since Elon’s arrival.
Nevertheless, all of my friends are getting on Threads - so will I.
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
Hype! Can't wait for you to get on Threads. Avengers assemble!
W snapshot!!!