Sam Bankman-Fraud Arrested

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Here is the breakdown of today's newsletter:

🚔 SBF arrested in Bahamas, charges incoming🏆 A look into the champion of Reddit NFTs💀 y00ts derivatives will get cease and desist

• Scottie Pippen drops sneak peeks of his sneaker project SP33 which he will be releasing with the help of Orange Comet. Check out the designs here. (@ScottePippen)

• 2021 NFT project inBetweeners announce the Drip collection hand in hand with Dolce & Gabbana that will be available today! (@inBetweenersNFT)

• Dippes continue the grind after the release of their adorable Van collection, promising holders future utility yet to be announced. (@DippiesNFT)

• Artist and writer Sarah Ferguson AKA Duchess of York is stepping into the Digital Art World. Their art will be minting on Dec 22 on the Nifty platform. (@SarahTheDuchess)

• Various celebrities that backed BAYC as well as Yuga Labs themselves are facing backlash and possible lawsuits surrounding promotion of their NFTs. (CT)

• NFTs are proving astoundingly popular in the Philippines, with projected growth of nearly 50%. (Y!)

• Twitter users have been experimenting big time with ChatGPT, testing its ability to write solidity contracts, and have seen some alarmingly successful results. (@gregosuri)

• Discord announce new linked roles that includes support for Solana. Servers with Solana app installed can prompt users to link and authenticate with their wallet. (@solana)

• Native Solana wallet, Sollet shuts down; deactivates website. (cryptotvplus)

SBF Arrested In Bahamas 🚔

After weeks of anticipation by millions across the world, Sam Bankman-Fried, aka SBF aka Sam Bankman FRAUD has been arrested in the Bahamas, following a sealed indictment filed by the Southern District of New York. His arrest was triggered a subsequent formal notification from the United States to the Bahamian government citing criminal charges filed against SBF, and the likely request for his extradition. 

Pursuant to the Bahamian Extradition Act, and other treaties between the two nations, once such a request is made, the Commonwealth generally tends to comply. Therefore, we should expect a relatively expedited extradition of SBF to the United States, where he will face a court in relation to the FTX fiasco. This revelation comes only about a week after Caroline Ellison, former CEO of Alameda Research, was “spotted” at a coffee shop in NYC, only a 5-minute cab ride from the SDNY US Attorney’s office. Coincidence? We think not.

💡 The DropDid Caroline flip on SBF? Solid chance. Was there some sort of deal cut? Quite likely. Why did this happen seemingly very suddenly when SBF appeared to be chillin’ for the past couple of weeks, doing interviews nonchalantly, and allegedly playing League of Legends? That we don’t know. But time will tell what exact charges pile up for him...What charges we know about right now from NYT:- Wire Fraud- Wire Fraud Conspiracy- Securities Fraud- Securities Fraud Conspiracy- Money Laundering

All we hope for is that people who were wronged are compensated in some way, and SBF/others that took part in the sham, get brought to justice. Who is the SDNY going to pick up next? WAGMI.

An Unsung NFT Marketplace Champion 🏆

The Reddit NFT craze might be out of the press… but the man who engineered the phenomenon is still working behind the scenes. When NFTs are mentioned, one cannot help but think of OpenSea or BAYC, and this is because they’ve been staples in the NFT trading culture. And perhaps this is what distinguishes relevant projects from those projects that indeed are successful. Regarding NFTs, how much the culture engages and remembers the project matters mightily. While Reddit NFTs are out of the current immediate spotlight now, it’s worth remarking on their run-up.

• Pali Bhat is the mastermind… he was hired last year as Reddit’s CPO; a new role in the company dedicated to fostering a greater sense of community among Redditors. Despite not having the most relevant background he was hired and Reddit is pretty happy about their decision.

• Talk about adoption… some of web3’s most optimistic outlooks manifest whenever an established institution with tons of users proposes finding ways to onboard those users onto web3 seamlessly. Bhat managed to implement an NFT vault for Reddit users such that in just a matter of one year, 2.5 million users engaged with their wallet. For comparison, OpenSea has amassed 2.3 million wallets over four years.

• Big volume… at its peak Reddit NFT’s were doing ETH volume at the magnitude of BAYC ETH volume for the respective time period.

💡 The DropThe numbers are there but will they stay… the numerical comparison between Reddit NFTs and other well-known NFTs emphasizes the reality that Reddit NFTs were not merely just a fad. Instead, they became a widely known and traded set of NFTs being used daily among Reddit’s very active community. Pali Bhatt is dedicated to this arm of Reddit’s research and development, so there’s reason to believe that we are only witnessing the infancy of Reddit NFTs.

y00ts Copycats Better Lawyer Up! 😠

Over the weekend, DeLabs made an announcement through its founder Frankdegods that they will be sending cease and assists to anyone making y00ts and DeGods derivatives. These concerns about derivatives have been out there, but just got triggered upon learning about an upcoming y00ts derivative mint called ‘qy00ts’, Frank said on a live derivative-inspired Twitter space.

“A lot of people in our community believed we were associated with the project. The mint was supposed to be tomorrow.”

The DeGods and y00ts founder hosted a Twitter space ‘derivatives? Good or bad?’ a day later to discuss the effects of derivatives with other thought leaders in the ecosystem, and luckily, the founder of qy00ts (y00ts’ derivative) joined in and was brought up to speak. The founder explained from his perspective why he’s making a y00t derivative; saying for a new project in this current market, it’s hard to get any attention. Frank empathized and advised him to pause the mint & go back to the drawing board and pivot the project to an original brand & original artwork. The qy00t founder agreed to scrap the derivative art/branding. At the time of writing, they’re currently rebranding.

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