February 07, 2024

Good afternoon. Last week's Max Keiser plug made us wonder… what other crypto conference moments top that?

Let's face it, crypto is a goofy world. It's a game-changer, for sure, but it also attracts some... interesting characters. And their antics at conferences? Pure entertainment gold.

So, we're putting it to you. Here are the clips/nominations (Carlos, Jack Mallers, Max Keiser, Vitalik)

What's the funniest crypto conference moment of all time?

Next week, we’ll share the results. Now, back to business…

Today’s Big Stories:
🐦️ Everyone’s talking about Farcaster
🛡️ Brave is booming
🙃 FTX customers are getting their money back

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_{Today's newsletter is 832 words, a 3-minute read.}

Let’s Talk About Farcaster, Crypto’s Hottest Social Experiment

The Gist: Farcaster, a new decentralized platform for building social media apps, is exploding in popularity thanks to its innovative "Frames" feature… and a bunch of degen token reward opportunities.

Now, is it a fleeting trend? Or is it actually the future of social media?

Key Points:

What is it? Cofounded by former Coinbase executives, Farcaster isn't a single app, but a foundation for various social media apps like Twitter-clone Warpcast, Discord-clone Farcord, and Reddit-clone Flink. Users own their data (usernames, profile pictures, posts, reactions, followers, etc.) and can move it between apps that offer different features and user experiences.

Why the explosion? A new feature called Frames just went live. It allows users to interact with posts, mint NFTs, make transactions, claim tokens, read external blog posts, participate in polls etc. – all without having to sign a transaction or leave to an external site or another app.

For example, someone created a full e-commerce experience for ordering Girl Scout Cookies using a Farcaster Frame. Other developers have built Frames that let users mint songs in one click, subscribe to a newsletter in one click, and play games like Doom right in their feed.

Another reason for the explosion is… money-hungry degens, of course.

Farcaster doesn’t have a native token, but some of the apps built on it do. It’s why free-token airdrops are abound, and a wave of NFTs are being launched/sold on the platform. To sum it up, people are already making money from tokens/NFTs on Farcaster, and it’s rapidly helping boost user adoption.

Is it the next big thing? Jury's out. Decentralized social media has a bumpy history (remember friend.tech?), with hype often fizzling. But Farcaster's unique features and $5 entry fee (aimed at curbing spam accounts) could differentiate it.

For what it’s worth, Not Boring’s Packy McCormick calls it “the most compelling example of why blockchain networks might ultimately disrupt corporate networks I’ve come across.”

Adding some more credibility, Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin and Base’s Jesse Pollak are already active on Farcaster.

Zoom Out: Farcaster is a fascinating experiment, but long-term success depends on overcoming historical challenges of decentralized social media. Let’s keep an eye on its evolution and user engagement to see if it lives up to the hype.

Related Reading: Twitter rival Bluesky opens to public right as Farcaster gains steam.

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Brave Crosses 25 Million Daily Active Users

Privacy-focused internet browser Brave has hit the 25-million-milestone of daily active users.

Releasing the news on Twitter as he does each month, Brave’s CEO Brendan Eich, noted that the number was a new all-time-high and was up 4% from December.

Eich also noted that monthly active users (MAUs) had crossed 59.21 million (3.8%).

Source: https://bravebat.info/brave_browser_active_users

Brave offers users a free, privacy-focused browser which offers opt-in advertisements in that reward the user in the company’s utility token Basic Attention Token (BAT). In short, unlike most browsers, Brave will actually pay you to use the software.

And although the company is growing significantly, the growth has not been reflected in the company’s native token. While much of the crypto market is in an upswing, BAT is down more than 27% over the past year and is now out of the top 100 tokens by market cap.

Our take: No affiliation or anything, but if you haven’t tried Brave browser yet, we suggest to give it a whirl. The best feature is definitely the built in ad-blocker. Also cool that you can slowly accumulate BAT, if you’re into that. Honestly, we just value it cause the founders value your privacy. The Brave team is far more trustworthy than Google, Safari, etc. 🛡️

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Former FTX Customers To Be Paid In Full… Kind Of

Former customers of bankrupt exchange FTX are to be paid in full according to an attorney for debtors.

FTX lawyer Andrew Dietderich told a judge: "We currently anticipate that we will have sufficient funds to pay all allowed customer and creditor claims in full.”

Um, how? By unloading assets and hoarding cash.

For one, the company is looking to offload it’s 8% stake in AI company Anthropic. The OpenAI competitor recently sought to raise money at an $18 billion valuation, putting the stake at $1.4 billion.
FTX has also been on a selling spree of cryptoassets it had on its balance sheet. In December, the company reported it had raised $1.8 billion by selling off some of the firm’s digital assets, with more to come.

Yes, but… Creditors will only be paid back for their losses at the time of FTXs bankruptcy. That means they won’t get a piece of any of crypto’s latest bull run.

Who’s not getting paid? Any of the VCs that invested the more than $2 billion raised by FTX.

What else? Any plans to restart the exchange are in the trash heap. According to Dietderich, “after an exhaustive effort, no investor is ready to commit the needed capital to a restart of the offshore exchange."

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Tweet Of The Week

Matt Hougan @Matt_Hougan

Fidelity has a 1-3% bitcoin allocation in their "All-in-One" asset allocation funds in Canada, using spot bitcoin ETFs. The "Conservative" version is posted below.

When and if this become the norm for portfolios in the US, wow... @scottmelker

Feb 7, 2024

545 Likes 108 Retweets 36 Replies

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