Do You Check Your Wallet Every 10 Seconds?

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ETH: $1,219.83 (+12.2% in 24h)

We bring you the big news, ask the questions that most outlets don't, and make fun of things that deserve it.

This is The Reveal, where the fun side of crypto is pumped and dumped into your inbox every Friday.

Top Tweets 🐣

What's going on in the world of crypto, through the eyes of Twitter.

1/ Prep The Lifeboats 🛶

Getting the sack from a cat. Only in crypto.

OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer shared a Discord message notifying staff that 20% of the workforce have been canned, bringing home yet another reality check that the bear market is here to stay.

Because we needed reminding 🙃

Your average Joe Degen says OpenSea will be knocked off its top spot any minute now, usually furiously typing something like "they haven't released a feature in years", but it's quite likely that this kind of decision making as well as strong network effects mean that they must be doing something right.

Right?

First movers don't always win and whilst OpenSea may not, there's not yet anywhere near a good enough NFT marketplace to break those network effects. 

2/ Rekt Porn 💀

Guardian journalist Sirin Kale wrote this week about Roy, a guy whose portfolio tracked the bull and bear market and who, "by day...checked his cryptocurrency wallets every 10 seconds; by night, he set alarms to go off on the hour".

You almost want to congratulate him on that sort of commitment.

This article is like mainstream press FUD bingo, or like your annoying mate who has called crypto a scam since day one and is now absolutely loving the crash and the buckets of  schadenfreude that comes with it. We all have one.

Other examples of people who lost money trading feature in the piece but really, to what end – to prove that you can lose money trading in any financial market?

Pieces like this are a good reminder of the realities of crypto however, and balance out the narrative against Crypto Twitter where you only see overnight successes.

3/ Punks Rock 🎸

A CryptoPunk sold for a very cool $2.6mil this week, which is a symptom of the wider surge in floor prices for blue chip collections.

Just like in other markets, luxury or Veblen goods tend to survive economic downturns because the buyers don't really give a toss about the wider climate.

In the NFT world, BAYC (+29%), Punks (+64%) and Moonbirds (+61%) have all seen floor price rises in the last 30 days, in ETH terms.

Phew, their holders are fine and caviar suppliers will survive.

Finance Guy 👨‍💼

We've hauled in our resident anonymous finance guy (RAFG) to give you his hot defi take for the week. As always, do your own research as he works in finance but isn't a genius.

The Arbitrum Odyssey

We have lift off! Kinda...

Arbitrum’s (Ethereum layer 2 scaling solution) Odyssey week kicked off 2 weeks ago, which is an 8-week series that basically gives you NFTs for doing a variety of weekly tasks, using applications built on the Arbitrum network.

A layer 2 solution is one that's built on top of a layer 1, Ethereum in this case, to help it scale and work better – without making it less secure or decentralised.

Airdrop Alert 🛫

It is hotly rumoured that participating in this will get you a greater token allocation when the widely expected airdrop happens.

An odyssey is defined as a “long and eventful journey” in the Oxford dictionary and it appears the creators may have taken this a bit too literally as, you guessed it, it has been delayed in week 2 following surging gas prices due to increased Arbitrum usage. They are working on an upgrade which should fix this issue but the proof will be in the pudding.

If in doubt though, get involved for the airdrop.

The whole point of a layer 2 built on top of Ethereum is to provide faster and cheaper transaction settlement so, without being too dramatic, this is a big deal.

Are layer 3s the next big thing?

If the whole world is going to use crypto apps some day, how many layers do we need to make this thing work? There's every chance we could have a technological, and not so tasty, mille-feuille on our hands.

Shiny New Toys 👀

Ok this is pretty slick.

Hype.day is a free version of Premint but with support for more chains than Ethereum. Having run NFT projects ourselves, Premint is fantastic to manage access lists and collabs – but does cost 1ETH. 

Guess people saw how much Premint were making and wanted a slice! Nothing like the blockchain to spark competition. when you see eye-watering profits on-chain.

Also as a side note, the domain extension .day is pretty cool in itself – there should be more like this as it's so intertwined with the brand that it's memorable.

Blast from the Past 🕰

In our research about CryptoPunks rocking right now, we were alerted to this 2017 article by former Mashable writer Jason Abbruzzese, who wrote about the strange new phenomenon that was NFTs and specifically Punks..

It's always fun to look back with hindsight at these pieces and mock them, but – given how new the concept was, it's well thought out and wisely presents both possibilities as a prediction.

Must remember to do that more.

A Digestif 🍸

Disclaimer: Obviously, none of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly recreational and educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Always be vigilant of scams and exercise caution – in other words do your own research.