🌶️ Hot take Friday

TGIF. This week we dove into a licensing minefield on Story protocol, a big-picture take on SAND getting its own creator economy-focused blockchain, why Kalshi flipped Polymarket and how in the future, you could make trades using only your mind. 

What’s cool about this current cycle is that new consumer apps keep coming. Today, we’re talking about a few of the latest, plus what’s going on with Zcash.

— Kate Irwin

Clear writing isn’t just about words — it’s about clear thinking. That’s why Blockworks’ Byron Gilliam (author of The Breakdown newsletter) put together a free guide on how to write about crypto.

It’s not a list of “10 hacks for better headlines.” It’s hard-earned lessons from someone who’s been making sense of markets for years.

Download the guide here.

• Zcash surges 170% in a week — why?

  • Good for crypto/bad for crypto? 👍

  • My hot take: It’s nice to see that some in crypto still care about individual and financial privacy as a concept, but I’m not so sure that buying Zcash is the answer. There’s a lot you can do in your Web2 life first to increase your personal privacy and security — like using a VPN on all devices, E2E encrypted messaging apps, private web browsers and search engines, and generally avoiding ChatGPT convos and products from Google and Meta. For the more hardcore, there’s also privacy-focused OS options, burner phones and other tools.

  • One Zcash supporter in my DMs (who’s worked at various crypto companies) says the price spike may be because some woke up and decided Zcash is “privacy bitcoin.” Others suggest Zcash is at a “social tipping point,” and argue that its fundamentals have improved in the past year.

  • If you’re curious, Blockworks just released a Zcash-funded report that suggests Zcash could be an ideal privacy option for institutions interested in adopting crypto. 

• Exclusive: World Network increases developer app rewards

  • TLDR: World is raising weekly Dev Rewards by 4x to $100,000, saying there are now over 500 Mini Apps on World app. Existing apps are rewarded based on usage and other metrics.

  • Good for crypto/bad for crypto? 👍

  • My hot take: This is good regardless of what you think about Worldcoin and its eye-scanning orb. Funding experimental crypto-powered apps that are gaining traction will absolutely help evolve the emerging crypto consumer ecosystem, which right now mainly consists of trading apps, prediction markets and memecoin launchpads. It’s also a cool way to reward developers with more money to keep iterating without making them quite so reliant on other sources of funding that may come with distracting incentives or conditions attached.

• Exclusive: World announces World Build 2 winners Fram3s, Valor, and Whole World Catalog

  • Good for crypto/bad for crypto? 👍

  • My hot take: Some interesting crypto x AI projects in here could ultimately help solve various issues with AI today. Fram3s is offering a gamified video-clipping app to provide AI data, Valor is rewarding human-verified users with a token for providing “hyperlocal” retail price data, and Whole World Catalog is building a collection of cultural references where human-verified World app users can select, rank and be compensated for contributions.

• Dupe launches open beta on Solana to trade CS:GO skins using crypto

  • Good for crypto/bad for crypto? 🤷‍♀️ 

  • My hot take: This is like DMarket (where you have to KYC), but with an “anonymous” option. You can either sign up with a Solana crypto wallet or your Steam account. If you go the anon route, though, Dupe won’t let you custody your purchased items. You’ll “own” them, but it’ll hold them for you. That’s certainly one workaround to provide user privacy while complying with regulation — just compromise on decentralization!

Crypto is changing TradFi derivatives and rate markets as we know them. 

DAS: London will feature all the builders driving this change. 

Get your ticket today with promo code: DROP100 for £100 off.

📅 October 13-15 | London