💧 Unicorn Tears
More FTX juice, More Twitter drama, Exhibitions... 🎨
Good morning☀️
In less than three years after becoming the CEO of Walt Disney Co., Bob Chapek will step down. Bob Iger, who is taking his old position back, is also on the board of Genies, the platform that lets users create their own digital avatars for use in virtual worlds.
In other news, FTX collapse continues to affect the entire industry. 134 companies affiliated with FTX filed for bankruptcy. Genesis tried a $1B bailout before halting withdrawals. Gemini paused withdrawals. News published articles on how if Binance or Tether go under, it might cause bigger issues (at least for centralized exchanges) ⚠️ Tether swapped $1 billion worth of Solana to Ethereum. Analysts are sharing fears about the level of exposure Tether had to FTT. Alameda Research was the top user of Tether, but the company refuted any claims of failure. But sometimes, gossip is bad enough. Binance selling its FTT sparked the collapse that came after, so withdrawals in large numbers due to fear could break a company that has no skeletons in the closet. #staysafu
Happy Thanksgiving, we are getting close to the end of the year, even closer to our personality tests Spotify Wrapped.
Come chat about this week’s news on our Twitter Spaces co-hosted with @Rarible.
Headlines 📰
FTX continues to fall. 🏚️🚧
FTX story was followed live on Twitter, while NYTimes got under fire for writing a puff story on SBF. Celebrities who appeared in FTX commercials — Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen, Shaquille O'Neal, and Larry David — are getting sued for ‘shilling’ for the company.
Many people lost their assets in FTX, including some NFT folks. Anyone who purchased one of the Coachella NFTs won’t be able to reach them as they were on FTX. There’s a lot of shocking parts of this story- but we should also remember that there are a lot of real people affected, who are unable to get their money back from the exchange, and who might not be able to get their money in full.
Updates you should definitely know about is his interview to Kelsey Piper via dms and the new FTX CEO’s comments after looking at the balance sheet.
While there are so much speculation and stories going around, a good take away from this demise is 1) SELF-CUSTODY!!!! Don’t trust centralized exchanges. But also the privilege certain people get which makes it easier to overcome hurdles. Those hurdles make sure the product is right. Mr. Wonderful said he would still invest in SBF, even after all this, in the meantime Elizabeth Holmes will be serving 11 years in jail. You cannot even imagine a situation where a woman does this and gets away. Billions worth of funds are missing on FTX — and let’s remember the missing crypto queen who scammed people $4 billion and got into FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
A “hardcore” Twitter 2.0. 📟
So much Elon drama happened over the last weeks -heck- months that story has as many details as a renaissance painting. Well, the latest from Twitter HQ is chief twit sent an ultimatum email asking the employees to commit to an extremely hardcore Twitter 2.0 or take severance and leave. There might be less than 1000 people working at Twitter right now.. start of the month it was 7,500. Previously, he fired dissenters, pursued new subscription products and told the company needs to shape up or it might face bankruptcy.
I’m honestly confused by his behavior at this point. I believe he is capable of making Twitter into a much better app, even a superapp. I appreciated most of what he said during Twitter Spaces that was directed at advertisers. Many look up to him at least his innovative businesses (he’s the richest guy on 🌎🤷♀️ Must be doing something right) I don’t think most of the changes he is trying to do at Twitter is wrong, but how he’s doing it makes it very hard to like him or his management style. Following the Twitter deal for months, we’ve just been watching the spectacle and trying to figure out where it’s going. 🤞
Anyhoo, here’s a caption that visa-kids will understand:
Punks in Museums. 👑
Yuga Labs has hatched a plan to donate CryptoPunk NFTs to modern art museums around the world, starting with Punk #305 being donated to Miami’s Institute of Contemporary Art. #305 will be viewable on December 2 during Art Basel. Yuga seems to be working in twofolds, while building the most successful NFT community and metaverse with BAYC, they want to create permanence and still hold the historical value of Punks. Yuga Labs also announced an initiative in Miami, the birthplace of the collection: a new $1 million program to support arts and education.
Physical Paintings as NFTs. 🖼
Co-founded by Doodles’ Chief Brand Officer and musician Pharrell, NFT artwork platform Gallery of Digital Assets (GODA) held an auction for NFTs from Hilma af Klint this week. Family members of the artist complained about the NFT auction, but the auction was facilitated and organized by the official Foundation involved in the project.
Refik Anadol made it to MoMA. 🖥🇹🇷
or, NFTs made it to MoMA! One of Anadol’s works is currently on display at the museum. But even more so, Anadol is creating a piece for the museum itself. The Turkish artist Refik Anadol creates data-driven machine learning algorithms that create abstract, dream-like environments. For the work he is crafting for MoMA, Unsupervised, he uses artificial intelligence to interpret and transform more than 200 years of art at MoMA. It’ll open next March.
Speed Round 🕺
Ronaldo launched NFTs on Binance last Friday.
Bankless introduced Bankless Collectibles, starting with the SBF x Erik Voorhees debate on their podcast.
Blur and X2Y2 will enforce and incentivize creator royalties.
Sony filed a patent for an in-game NFT assets system.
Sound is dropping over 20 new songs this week.
A Pudgy Penguin will be on a Kellogg’s box!
A full Wolf Game is reportedly coming in December.
Tweet Check. 🐦
Fun Watch 📺
Why Not 💡
Featured Partner 🤝
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Eyes Forward 👀
Excited for Web3 Summits, happening on November 30th and December 1st in Miami. Are you interested in sponsoring or speaking at the event? Check it out here.
I’ll be in Miami — will be speaking at Web3 Summits, and curating an exhibition as part of the Multi Faith Prayer Room.
-Aleyna
Disclaimer: Investing in ctypto comes with inherent risk including technical risk, human error, platform failure and more. This newsletter is strictly educational and nothing we offer is financial advice. Views our own and not any other company we’re affiliated with.
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