Currently Relevant: Edition 13

Welcome to Currently Relevant, THE RELEVANCE HOUSE’s regular roundup curating the best of news, views, and stories from the blockchain, crypto, and Web3 space.

This week: How 2023’s regulatory whirlwind has created three distinct faces of Brand Crypto globally; why the real value in NFTs is about so much more than numbers go up; NASA will enshrine moon landing data on the blockchain.

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What’s currently relevant in THE RELEVANCE HOUSE

Rolling Stone, never a publication to shy away from making a statement, has declared NFTs “actually – finally – totally worthless.” And actually, based on their measures, it’s perhaps a correct assessment. The market for NFTs, if we talk about floor prices and trading volumes, is unarguably languishing.

However, if valuable is the opposite of worthless, then value conveys a far broader meaning than the mere price and frequency at which something is traded. Value can be derived from an easier user experience, increased loyalty, new ways to engage customers, and more. In the latest article on THE RELEVANCE HOUSE blog, we explore five ways that firms can use NFTs to generate value.

Read “More than just a jpeg”

Too many Web3 founders treat branding as an afterthought, instead choosing to pursue the random and elusive hit of viral success. But in fact, branding is closer to the language of Web3 than many founders realize.

In his latest thought piece for Cointelegraph, our Co-founder German makes the case that effective branding is akin to writing a piece of computer code. Everything your company puts out into the public domain creates an outcome in the same way that syntax and functions in programming generate an outcome. For founders, the key is creating the right branding programming to suit your own business and target audience.

Read the full piece: Human-readable code: Why branding is the programming language of humans.

German also has the honor of speaking at the HeroFest event in Bern on October 13^th – for more details (and to offer helpful costume suggestions!), please check out this LinkedIn post.

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The Big Picture

In each edition, THE RELEVANCE HOUSE founder German Ramirez brings his marketing and strategy insights to the biggest stories from the world of Web3, delivered with a pinch of spice.

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The three faces of Brand Crypto

As someone predominantly concerned with branding, regulation isn’t a topic I typically discuss at length. However, 2023 (so far!) has been a regulatory whirlwind, and stepping back, the force of it is shaping the evolution of “Brand Crypto” at a rate I haven’t seen before in this industry. What’s more, it seems to be creating a global divergence into three distinct “faces” of crypto, which are largely shaped by regulatory attitudes.

In the US, the crypto industry has become an outlaw on the run from Silicon Valley to the financial equivalent of Death Valley, thanks to the ongoing enforcement actions of the SEC.

Ironically, the closest equivalent to the Land of the Free when it comes to attitudes to crypto is probably China, where the government has only provided the thinnest recognition that crypto even exists. Even if the lengthy US legal process eventually moves in the industry’s favor, the SEC’s actions have already proven damaging.

Many crypto firms have shut down their US businesses, while Coinbase, the first digital asset firm to be listed on a US stock exchange, is now seeking to shield itself from US regulatory uncertainty by expanding into more crypto-friendly jurisdictions.

Which brings us to the second face of crypto – the besuited technocrat that now typifies countries where crypto is permitted, but only if it’s prepared to play nicely alongside TradFi.

The European Union, Canada, Hong Kong, and Japan are all examples of countries that are willing to lend compliant crypto firms the air of respectability. But only if you register, complete your AML checklists, and don’t step out of line.

Then there’s the third category – which retains the innovative, visionary, “f*ck yeah!” attitude characteristic of the crypto industry itself for so many years.

Over the last few weeks, much of the good-news crypto headlines have been firmly focused on Asia, with South Korea emerging as a particular focal point. Many attendees of the recent Korean Blockchain Week noted the upbeat sentiments and high level of retail interest in crypto, backed up by a report from the country’s tax organization, which states that crypto accounts for 70% of overseas assets held by Koreans. The southern port city of Busan has also announced it is developing its own Ethereum-compatible public blockchain network to advance its bid to become a “Blockchain City.”

But it’s not just Korea. Many other developed and developing economies are taking a more progressive stance on crypto, and adoption is trending ever higher. India tops this year’s Global Adoption Index published by Chainalysis, where Gemini has just invested $24 million as part of its expansion plans.

Nigeria, which is in second place, has the most crypto-aware population in the world, according to a recent survey. In Brazil, which is also in the top ten, the country’s central bank is collaborating with Mercado Bitcoin, the country’s largest exchange, on CBDC development.

So, three faces of Brand Crypto. Since each jurisdiction is free to go its own way, it’s unlikely that one will prevail. The questions are: how will these three personas play together in the future, and how can Web3 founders find the best approach for audiences in any given jurisdiction?

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Funding news

South Korean Web3 venture fund Hashed signed a deal with one of Thailand’s largest financial institutions, SCBX, to work on shared R&D initiatives aimed at promoting decentralized technologies. The move came a week after SCBX’s biggest rival, Kasikornbank, launched a $100 million fund for the development of Web3 and AI.
Bitmain, the world’s largest manufacturer of Bitcoin mining equipment, has announced a $54 million investment in troubled mining firm Core Scientific, which filed for bankruptcy protection in December last year.
Infrastructure projects continue to be a focal point for investors, as Rated Labs, a startup that provides infrastructure datasets for Ethereum, raised $12.9 million in a Series A round.
A new project called Freatic emerged from stealth mode to score a $3.6 million raise led by a16z. The project uses cryptography and game theory to connect users to untapped information about markets.

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What’s new in Web3?

NASA plans to prove the event of the next moon landing via blockchain by sending a payload to the moon containing “data cubes” that will be verified here on Earth using blockchain technology. While the news is great for enterprise adoption buffs, will the additional assurance be sufficient to convince moon landing conspiracists that the original landings were not staged?
NFT brand Pudgy Penguins made its real-world debut this week, as the project launched its physical Pudgy toy collection in 2000 Walmart stores across the US. The move is an intriguing step for a Web3 firm attempting to reinforce its business model and brand with real-world audiences. Could it mark the beginning of a trend towards hybrid collections?
Ethereum futures ETFs could start trading in the US as early as next week due to the imminent US government shutdown, according to Bloomberg analysts. There are currently 15 ether futures ETFs from nine issuers pending approval.

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Focus on fintech and digital assets

Binance announced earlier this week that it plans to exit Russia with the sale of its local business to a day-old firm called Commex. The firm issued a press release stating that operating in Russia wasn’t compatible with its compliance strategy, following reports earlier this year that the US Department of Justice was investigating whether Binance was allowing Russian customers to trade in breach of sanctions.
The Swiss Digital Exchange (SDX) has gained a sixth member. Hypothekarbank Lenzburg will join Berner Kantonalbank, Credit Suisse, Kaiser Partner Privatbank, UBS, and Zürcher Kantonalbank in trading digital securities on the SDX blockchain platform.
Circle has expanded its euro-pegged stablecoin to the Stellar blockchain in a bid to boost crypto payments and remittances. EURC is the third-largest euro stablecoin, and the Stellar iteration has already been integrated by payments provider Ripio, which focuses on Latin America and Spain.

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Inside the infrastructure

Bitcoin Ordinals, which underpin Bitcoin NFT and BRC-20 transactions, have not displaced monetary transfers on the Bitcoin network, according to a new report from analytics firm Glassnode. Ordinals users tend to set low fee rates and wait longer for block confirmation, meaning that despite their huge popularity, they only account for around 20% of transaction fees.
Decentralized cross-chain protocol Mixin Network is offering a $20 million bug bounty to hackers who stole $200 million in an attack on September 23. The exploit happened when the attackers breached a third-party cloud service provider used by the project.
Chainlink has extended its cross-chain interoperability protocol (CCIP) to Coinbase’s Ethereum Layer 2 network Base. The protocol enables developers to build cross-chain applications that can transfer assets and data across blockchain networks. Base is the sixth addition to Chainlink’s CCIP, following the integration of Ethereum, Avalanche, Polygon, Arbitrum, and Optimism.

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Weird crypto story of the week

The crypto influencer formerly known as Bitboy makes a reappearance this week. Ben Armstrong, who was dropped by his company Bitboy Crypto several weeks ago, this week live-streamed a bizarre 37-minute video of himself in which he drove to a former associate’s house with a weapon in the vehicle and subsequently got himself arrested. He’s since been released on bail and out on social media, mocking the leniency of his eight-hour confinement.

The value of his $BEN token (of course he has a $BEN token) dropped by 30% on the news of his arrest. It’s not quite clear what needs to happen for the token price to recover, but one can take a wild guess.

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