⤵️ Down 82%

GM! 

The weekend is over, and I’m sad about it. But there’s a lot of news for us to catch up on.

Today we’re talking about Coinbase, Magic Eden, Sony and more. 

— Kate Irwin

🥶 Coinbase says it reduced account freezes by 82%

Coinbase is taking action to reduce the number of users it’s locking out — and says its efforts are paying off.

“Account freezing has been a major issue at Coinbase for longer than is acceptable,” Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said. “I could list a bunch of the underlying reasons why it got so bad in the first place, but what's more important is that we've made it a priority to fix, and we have been making good progress.”

Dor Levi, Coinbase VP of Product, explained that he joined Coinbase recently with the goal of getting account-lock numbers down.

“Our restriction experience is not meeting my own bar,” Levi said.

Coinbase recently made some technical changes and improvements, including some to its infrastructure, teams, and machine learning models. They’ve been able to fine-tune said ML models to tackle the issue.

“Account freezes should be rare, limited to situations that warrant them, primarily when we're legally obligated (e.g. sanctions or court orders) or protecting users (e.g. from scams or account compromises),” Levi wrote.

Both Armstrong and Levi confirmed that account-lock occurrences are down roughly 82% within the past few months.

Coinbase often restricts user accounts when it’s concerned about what it detects as potentially suspicious activity. This means any activity that could be in possible violation of any nation’s laws, including fraud. Locked accounts can result in customers being forced to jump through various ID verification hoops and spend time speaking with support to try to resolve the issue.

Coinbase’s site says it “sometimes” places restrictions on user accounts, but claims that only very rarely does it fully “freeze” customer funds.

This change within Coinbase is a step toward keeping more of its users happy, especially as it faces scrutiny following a customer support-related data breach.

We’re still waiting to see how or whether Coinbase ups its customer data security practices post-breach.

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Well, that was short-lived. 

Magic Eden and the Trump memecoin team’s so-called Trump Wallet, which they hyped up on social media but didn’t launch, is now dead.

That’s according to a post from the President’s son Eric Trump, who said the wallet he didn’t authorize and took issue with “isn’t moving forward.”

Magic Eden’s since deleted its multiple posts about the wallet. Last week, the Trumps’ World Liberty Financial reportedly sent a cease-and-desist letter to Fight Fight Fight to shut down the wallet, which used renderings of Donald Trump in its imagery. The website where Magic Eden was collecting early signups was also taken offline, and the wallet’s corresponding X account had been banned even before that. 

This whole fiasco suggests the TRUMP memecoin team wasn’t exactly in frequent communication with the Trump family — or at least may have not discussed the wallet before advertising it. Apparently, WLF is planning to launch a wallet of its own, and WLF is buying even more of the TRUMP memecoin.

“World Liberty Financial plans to acquire a substantial position in $TRUMP for their Long-Term Treasury,” Eric Trump wrote.

Magic Eden’s ME token remains up about 6% in the past week, but is down 19% in the past month.

Eve Frontier opens up

Eve Online developer CCP Games continues to build its crypto game version. The upcoming space survival MMO Eve Frontier, which is getting its own EVE token, is ending its closed alpha and opening up its still-in-development game for anyone to check out. 

You’ll have to buy access via a founders pass, though, which starts at $40 and could cost you up to $100 depending on what tier you choose (each tier comes with its own benefits). Eve Frontier will eventually charge for monthly subscriptions and in-game items as well.

“Blockchain is intrinsic to our design and code: allowing us to create a shared, moddable and permanent universe that all players will inhabit,” the game’s website reads. “However: interactions with on-chain elements of the game will be seamless and invisible. We believe that gameplay and game features are what is important over the underlying infrastructure.”

The game’s non-crypto in-game token LUX will be exchangeable for its crypto token, though players don’t have to buy EVE if they don’t want to.

This one is undeniably ambitious. That’s exciting in a crypto gaming landscape that’s been deflated with a series of game and studio shutdowns — and where it often feels like games put tokens before gameplay.

Eve Frontier will have to compete with Star Atlas plus its non-crypto competitors for eyeballs, but I get the sense they’re up for that challenge.

If you’re curious about the game, there’s a new trailer out that dropped over the weekend:

• Sony’s crypto arm is launching an incubator for crypto games and apps called Soneium For All. Astar Network and Startale Cloud Services are supporting the incubator, which aims to offer app teams guidance and investment support via the Sony Innovation Fund. 

  • Accepted apps that plan to use the ASTR token can also apply for funding from a $60,000 pool.

  • Applications opened today, and those accepted will be notified in late July.