The Week in Web3

Author

Yahya from Layer3
March 28, 2022

GM. Here's your 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

Katie Haun launches her own record-breaking $1.5B crypto fund

Former federal prosecutor turned crypto investor, Katie Haun, has just raised the biggest ever fund as a solo VC. And, of course, it’s all focused on Crypto.

Haun had previously worked at a16z alongside Chris Dixon on Andreessen’s Crypto team. Now she’s one of their most high-profile defectors, leaving to start her own fund - Haun Ventures. Here’s her mirror blog post announcing it.

Haun Ventures is launching with $1.5 billion in capital across two funds — a $500 million early-stage fund and a $1 billion “acceleration” fund.

It appears that Haun Ventures will lean into the regulatory side of things - which figures, given Haun’s background with the DOJ. It also means they’ll be in direct competition with a16z - who’ve also doubled down on the crypto-policy side of things.

Do Kwon starts buying up Bitcoin 

A few weeks back, Do Kwon - the founder of Terraform Labs, announced that UST (their algorithmic stablecoin) would also become collateralised.

How? They said they’ll back it with a $10B reserve of Bitcoin. Here’s the announcement:

What does this actually mean though?

Taking a step back, Stablecoins typically work in one of two ways. Either they’re backed / collateralised by real world assets (e.g. USDC is backed by cash or equivalents) - or they’re algorithmic (where coins are either burned or minted to keep the price in line with the target).

UST is an algorithmic stablecoin (learn more about Terra here) but it’s now ALSO going to be backed by another asset: Bitcoin. Some think this is a sign of Bitcoin starting to serve it’s true purpose as a reserve currency.

Do Kwon (who some laughed at for this plan) - has already started buying up Bitcoin - in batches of $125m at a time. Could this be the reason for the recent BTC price spike? 👀

Either way, they’re doing something right. Just look at the market cap of UST in comparison to its longer-running (algorithmic stablecoin) counterpart DAI.

Zuck files a bunch of crypto trademarks

Meta, previously Facebook, have filed for eight new trademarks for their new loop logo - including

  • Crypto tokens

  • Blockchain software

  • Virtual currency exchanges

  • Currency trading

  • Digital crypto

  • Virtual currencies

It’s not yet clear exactly what these filing mean for Meta, but reading between the lines it’s pretty clear that they see crypto and blockchain playing a big part in their vision for the metaverse.

It’ll be interesting to see how this pans out - given that Meta and their whole business model is often used as the antithesis / “what we’re trying to fix” when it comes to web3.

They may not have the trust and support of the crypto-crowd (or any crowd for that matter) - but we wouldn’t underestimate Zuck though 😟 This won’t be the last we hear.

What else you should know

The Bank of England is finally getting around to it as they begin sketching out a regulatory approach to crypto.

Coinbase is said to be close to a deal to buy Brazil’s largest Crypto exchange.

Crypto taxes, but not how you think. Florida governor says the state will accept Bitcoin for tax payments.

Janet Yellen is finally acknowledging crypto’s role in finance - and sounding far more constructive on the space.

There’s gonna be an Ape metaverse. Bored Apes creator Yuga Labs completes their $450 million funding round, led by a16z.

Crypto Exchange Kraken gets equal treatment from the Fed as traditional banks - in key milestone.

Tweets of the Week 🐦

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

Europe is bullish on Bitcoin

Us too - where are the tunes?! 

Pretty deep but thought provoking stuff from 6529

Apple take 30% 🤷

From one of our own! Help Aryan get to 10k 🙏

Web3 101: The Crypto Fear and Greed Index 💡

Each week we’ll cover an essential web3 concept in simple terms - this week we’re looking at the Fear and Greed Index ✨

Have you seen this chart before on the news or socials?

What is it?

The Crypto Fear and Greed Index is a metric designed to gauge the market sentiment of crypto at any given time.

It’s based on the CNNMoney Fear and Greed Index for analysing the stock market.

How does it work?

In short, if the index value is 1, that indicates “extreme fear” and in theory correlates to a buying opportunity.

On the other hand, a value of 100 would indicate “extreme greed” and suggest that the market’s too hot.

It uses these sorts of things to get to a final number:

  • Market volatility

  • Market momentum/volume

  • Social media sentiment

  • Large weekly surveys

Obviously no one can predict the price of crypto, so this is just one tool available when you DYOR (do your own research)!

ICYMI

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That's all for today! Thoughts on today's email?

Yahya at Layer3