Apologies for the delay - We’re in full swing at NFT.NYC and Substack was giving me issues earlier in the week. But we’re here! So many events going on and so much to report on, but that’ll come next week. For now, we’re staying on theme.
Last week was slower than most over in the Austin-sphere. Just a few things and thoughts for you today.
Golbintown doxx
If you happened to be dwelling under a bridge and hiding from relatives during this recent dumpster fire that is the market, you might’ve missed the drop (and rise) of one of the more interesting NFT projects on the market.
Goblintown dropped seemingly out of the blue. No roadmap, not much marketing, a free mint. It was cc0, but what the hell were you gonna do with these ugly green gremlinny-goblins anyway?
Then of course, as the day it minted went on, we had NFT Twitter’s finest gearing up their best CJ impressions for a hearty “Ah shit, here we go again.”
You just can’t underestimate the meme these days. The shady communication from the team, including the font they used and the weird voices on Twitter spaces, just fed into it all. People ate it up. We had people who decided they got it, and were in on the joke, and people who just watched on the outside like “what the hell is going on? Which, ironically, is a nice representation of the public reception to NFTs at large. Plus, in the wake of people losing tons of paper gains, seeing something so trivial represent a real amount of eth was just perfect.
To bring some legitimacy to it all, the team decided to doxx themselves so collectors could know who was stewarding this goblin ship. Turns out, it’s the team at Truth Labs.
Impossible to miss this stuff but the timelines have been all caps BAD for a few weeks now. LUNA started us off, but this week we had multiple companies announce layoffs and Celsius and 3AC in the crosshairs. Celsius is/was a crypto-backed loan company that froze withdrawals as they endured a “bank run” of sorts, and 3AC was a crypto hedge fund that just got rekt on leverage.
Froze withdrawals? In crypto? There is a quote that “people only care about decentralization when its convenient” that really came to fruition with this series of events. I guess most of us only care up to about 8%, which is what Celsius was offering in APY on stablecoins.
Now, people were calling out LUNA and Celsius. Some people did catch that. But that’s different than Three Arrows Capital. They were the ones doing the calling for a while. But hey, when one trillion dollars gets wiped off the total crypto market cap, nobody is safe.
This thread goes into detail that I’m just not smart enough to explain:
“Austin, you just got done telling me how bad everything is, why would I jump in now?”
Quick story: I first bought Bitcoin back in 2017 after an Andreas Antonopoulos episode on Joe Rogan. Rode that puppy all the way up to $20k, and then all the way back down to $3k. Sold all of it at a loss so I could afford a dinner with a few friends who wanted to go Tim Ho Wan in Manhattan. (I was a broke college kid, give me a break.)
Then, I proceeded to completely forget about crypto for a while. Now, here we are. Big mistake. I stopped paying attention after a big run up and then a crash, and I regret it. One major difference at this point though is so much more exists. So much has been built. If you believe there’s a chance that this whole thing won’t go to zero, then what’s stopping you from getting familiar now? It certainly isn’t the prices.
Right now, and over the next few months, might be the best time to play. Tons of material to learn from, people to ask questions to, and things to do. Jump in and learn for the steep steep learning curve cost of, I don’t know, $37.
Also, as one must, this is not financial advice. I’m already concerned for Thanksgiving with the family, I don’t need you all mad at me too.
Last Week in web3 #2
Last Week in web3 #2
Last Week in web3 #2
Apologies for the delay - We’re in full swing at NFT.NYC and Substack was giving me issues earlier in the week. But we’re here! So many events going on and so much to report on, but that’ll come next week. For now, we’re staying on theme.
Last week was slower than most over in the Austin-sphere. Just a few things and thoughts for you today.
Golbintown doxx
If you happened to be dwelling under a bridge and hiding from relatives during this recent dumpster fire that is the market, you might’ve missed the drop (and rise) of one of the more interesting NFT projects on the market.
Goblintown dropped seemingly out of the blue. No roadmap, not much marketing, a free mint. It was cc0, but what the hell were you gonna do with these ugly green gremlinny-goblins anyway?
Then of course, as the day it minted went on, we had NFT Twitter’s finest gearing up their best CJ impressions for a hearty “Ah shit, here we go again.”
You just can’t underestimate the meme these days. The shady communication from the team, including the font they used and the weird voices on Twitter spaces, just fed into it all. People ate it up. We had people who decided they got it, and were in on the joke, and people who just watched on the outside like “what the hell is going on? Which, ironically, is a nice representation of the public reception to NFTs at large. Plus, in the wake of people losing tons of paper gains, seeing something so trivial represent a real amount of eth was just perfect.
To bring some legitimacy to it all, the team decided to doxx themselves so collectors could know who was stewarding this goblin ship. Turns out, it’s the team at Truth Labs.
Fun!
The Bad Stuff
Impossible to miss this stuff but the timelines have been all caps BAD for a few weeks now. LUNA started us off, but this week we had multiple companies announce layoffs and Celsius and 3AC in the crosshairs. Celsius is/was a crypto-backed loan company that froze withdrawals as they endured a “bank run” of sorts, and 3AC was a crypto hedge fund that just got rekt on leverage.
Froze withdrawals? In crypto? There is a quote that “people only care about decentralization when its convenient” that really came to fruition with this series of events. I guess most of us only care up to about 8%, which is what Celsius was offering in APY on stablecoins.
Now, people were calling out LUNA and Celsius. Some people did catch that. But that’s different than Three Arrows Capital. They were the ones doing the calling for a while. But hey, when one trillion dollars gets wiped off the total crypto market cap, nobody is safe.
This thread goes into detail that I’m just not smart enough to explain:
A good time to play?
“Austin, you just got done telling me how bad everything is, why would I jump in now?”
Quick story: I first bought Bitcoin back in 2017 after an Andreas Antonopoulos episode on Joe Rogan. Rode that puppy all the way up to $20k, and then all the way back down to $3k. Sold all of it at a loss so I could afford a dinner with a few friends who wanted to go Tim Ho Wan in Manhattan. (I was a broke college kid, give me a break.)
Then, I proceeded to completely forget about crypto for a while. Now, here we are. Big mistake. I stopped paying attention after a big run up and then a crash, and I regret it. One major difference at this point though is so much more exists. So much has been built. If you believe there’s a chance that this whole thing won’t go to zero, then what’s stopping you from getting familiar now? It certainly isn’t the prices.
Right now, and over the next few months, might be the best time to play. Tons of material to learn from, people to ask questions to, and things to do. Jump in and learn for the steep steep learning curve cost of, I don’t know, $37.
Also, as one must, this is not financial advice. I’m already concerned for Thanksgiving with the family, I don’t need you all mad at me too.