What's simpler than a vending machine?

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Read time: 5 mins (like web5 but minutes)

Dece! It's only up from here...right?

You've probably already read about Apple being greedy over NFTs and Elon buying Twitter, so we're here with some stories you probably haven't seen.

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

News Hits 🗞

1/ And Now for My Next Trick 🧙‍♂️

A self-titled 'Crypto King' from Canada claimed he was rekt and was afterwards spotted driving around in a $150k bright green car and posing with a diamond-studded Rolex in photos, which of course are both immediate red flags that have become synonymous with dodgy crypto dealers.

So far, only $2 million of the at least $25 million he allegedly owes to investors has been recovered.

The amount Aiden Pleterski allegedly owes has soared since the start of the investigation in August when that number was $13 million.

As the investigation progressed, bankruptcy trustees discovered five luxury cars registered in various family member’s names that Pleterski paid for with creditor funds, the report states.

That includes a Porsche Boxter and Audi e-tron registered in his mother’s name, an Audi S5 driven by Pleterski’s brother, along with a BMW M8 and a Bentley Bentayga tied to his father’s name.

Bankruptcy trustees are also in the process of recovering an Audi A4 previously in the possession of Pleterski’s former girlfriend, Mya Patricia Trentadue.

What's with these guys and cars?

The case goes on against the mischievous little tyke.

2/ Wen Web5? ⚡️

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey is pushing ahead with developing what he's calling web5, and reckons it will spell the death of web3 VCs who have come to own the ecosystem as actors are all owned by centralised parties: the antithesis of web3.

The premise to Zion, his new product, is that you can truly take your own identity with you wherever you go, like being able to:

• log into any site on the web without creating an account

• switch to new streaming service and keep your preferences

• leave Twitter and Instagram and take all your connections with you

So it's a little confusing to see this standard, web2 sign-up form:

I guess the world isn't ready for web5.

3/ NFT Vending Machine 🤭

MyNFT, a multichain NFT marketplace that’s “bringing non-fungible tokens to the masses”, has announced it will exhibit Europe’s first-ever physical NFT vending machine at the NFT.London conference next week.

They're saying it's Europe's first NFT vending machine because they nicked the idea off a bloke who did it in New York back in February.

The vending process has been designed to bring NFTs “offline and into the real world”. A spokesperson remarked: “What’s simpler than a vending machine?" Too right, but I kind of prefer something I can eat to come out of it.

If you're hungry for digital art though, first you need to do is select one of the items on display and enter in a code.

The items in the machine are envelopes that contain a QR code that when scanned will help users set up a MyNFT account which comes with an NFT wallet and the NFT they just purchased.

Phew.

So really, the vending machine acts as a way to obtain a QR code to begin a web3 onboarding journey 👍

DeFi Guy 👨🏼‍💼

After a week off due to an insurmountable and unprecedented level of back-office admin, he's back to give you sound advice in your investing journey (but do your own research, obvi).

In short: the latest algo stablecoin to fail is USN, the stablecoin backed by NEAR protocol.

Lesson: algo stablecoins really do not work, so avoid them like the plague.

What is it?

USN is the stablecoin of NEAR protocol that launched earlier this year and is soft-pegged to the US Dollar (but doesn't hold USD reserves).

It relies on traders exploiting arbitrage opportunities to keep the price pegged, and is backed by a reserve fund, run by the treasury DAO, made up of USDT & NEAR tokens.

As you might suspect, it pays a juicy 10% yield and just like your parents might warn: it's too good to be true.

Why did this happen?

It went down in a similar way to Terra, because its construction is very similar.

The argument is that by not requiring over-collateralization, as other stablecoins like DAI do, it can quickly gain market share and outgrow overcollateralized competitors.

However, as the UST debacle showed, when times get tough, it leads the coin open to getting attacked and runs on the coin can occur

This week, new USN minting was permanently halted and the project is being wound down

This isn’t a collapse on the scale of UST but it is another nail in the coffin for algo stablecoins where lots of projects have come and gone but the evidence now appears clear – they don’t work in practice.

Shiny New Toys 👀

The much-hyped NFT project, Art Gobblers, is going to start minting its first 2,000 free mints on Monday, with spookily strong signals that this is going to be a big deal in the space.

It's a self-sustaining game involving Gobbler NFTs that produce GOO, which is used to produce Blank Paper for art, which is consumed by a Gobbler. Seems simple, but it's really not, as the decisions a holder makes will affect not just their own value but also what happens in the wider economy.

Backed by Paradigm, the mechanics to this are truly original and the Discord is awash with credible collectors and artists – it's one to keep a firm eye on.

A Digestif 🍸

My favourite new gimmick Twitter account. Nothing to do with crypto:

Hope you enjoyed the weirder side of what went on this week, see you next Friday!