GM. Every Monday we'll drop a roundup of Web3 news, tweets and vibes from the last 7 days. Avoid FOMI (fear of missing info) with Layer3 🤝

Your Web3 Briefing 📝

A roundup of the biggest Web3 headlines over the last week

Ukraine continues to fundraise with crypto

Last week we wrote about how Ukraine was fundraising in crypto to help fight Russia, and there’s been no sign of this slowing down.

There have now been around 120,000 donations made, with the amount raised standing at over $50M - and the Ukrainian government expect to double that soon.

Ukraine has actually started to put these crypto donations to good use - saying they’ve already spent $15M on military supplies.

What’s more, it turns out 40% of these suppliers were even willing to be paid directly in crypto (the rest were paid in crypto converted to Euros and Dollars).

This fundraising is an inspiring success for crypto-native Ukraine - but there have been a couple of weird plot twists along the way...

First, the rate of crypto donations skyrocketed on Tuesday 2nd March after the Ukrainian government teased an airdrop, saying they’d take a snapshot of all the addresses that had sent in donations.

Then, barely a day later, Fedorov announced that the airdrop would be cancelled - and that they would issue NFTs instead.

And cue...

Whilst some people got hung up on whether they’d just been rugged by a country, others figured this hardly matters in the context of war. You gotta question the motivations of those who donated to Ukraine only off the promise of an airdrop.

Plus, its likely the airdrop was cancelled in part due to the scams that continue plague the space - like a spoof scam where a hacker was able to make it look like Ukraine’s Ethereum address was distributing tokens to individuals.

No news yet on Ukraine’s official NFT sale, but this DAO has already taken it upon themselves to raise funds - selling a Ukrainian flag NFT for 2250 ETH (or around $6.75M)

In other news, this story from last week was just too good not to write-up. Read on for ridiculousness... 

'Crypto Pokemon' project raised $70M, then reveals NFT art so hilariously bad it's almost... good?

So there’s this NFT project called Pixelmon. It was meant to be like the Pokemon of NFT games. They teased cool stuff like this: 

The founder had been getting people pumped!

And people sure did buy into that vision. Like seriously bought in. With a mint price of 3ETH (or around $8,000) per NFT - Pixelmon were able to raise an eye-watering $70M.

Yes you read that right: seventy-million-dollars. So, with that AAA budget, this must’ve been a blockbuster game, right? Bring on the art-reveal!

Wait... 😭 Yeah. Safe to say the project has been crushed on Twitter, with many calling it a scam. Even the once-bullish founder has since called it a “horrible mistake” - but promised to still deliver the game.

At least we got some good memes out of it - and tbf, Kevin’s already become iconic.

What else you should know

A major crypto exchange, FTX, announces push into Europe

Andre Cronje and Anton Nell announce they're quitting Crypto and DeFi

Learn by doing, they say. KPMG Canada bought a World of Women NFT for 25 ETH to make sure they’re “well-positioned to guide clients on corporate NFT strategy” 

SEC considering if some NFTs should be subject to the same rules as stocks

Other chains continue to eat Ethereum's pie. Check out this chart by Galaxy Digital Research:

Tweets of the Week 🐦

We spend time on CT, so you don’t have to. Some of our favourite recent tweets: 

Important thread from Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong on Crypto, sanctions and compliance 

We're not biased at all

Good perspective  

These people need to touch grass

Yeah, looks about right

Web3 101: Airdrops 💡

Each week we’ll cover an essential web3 concept in simple terms - this week we’re looking at Airdrops✨

Airdrops were in the news this last week after the Ukrainian government promised one - and then changed their mind. But what are they?

Keeping it simple, airdrops usually boil down to a crypto marketing tactic. They involve the free distribution of (usually new) tokens to drive awareness and bootstrap communities.

The benefits and use-cases for crypto airdrops are usually:

1. Awareness of new projects

2. Rewarding loyal users of existing projects

3. Decentralising token distribution

4. Fundraising (through generating buzz)

5. Community engagement (e.g. complete a certain action to receive the airdrop)

ICYMI

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Yahya at Layer3