The Merge is here - What you should know 🕵🏻♂️
GM,
This is Cryptonite, your once-a-week shot to stay updated about the crazy world of crypto. We hit you with what’s relevant, upcoming and funny — minus the FUD.
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The Eth merge is here 🚨
The crypto event we’ve all been waiting for is almost here and the date is set for Sep 19th.
What’s happening - Delayed repeatedly, the Ethereum merge had no end in sight and people were kind of losing hope. But now it looks like we’re about to witness history. Pretty. Damn. Soon. The Merge is set to happen on TTD 58750000000000000000000. This is expected to happen by September 19th.
In the developer world, events move around TTDs or terminal total difficulty instead of dates. Once it hits the difficulty, Ethereum will transition from PoW to PoS.
Our take: This is the closest we’ve seen ourselves with the merge. Ether hit a 24-hour high of $1,912, and as of the moment of writing, Ether looks green on the price charts with an 11,40% increase.
The new way to invest in your favourite creators 💵
CreatorDAO just raised $20M for people to invest in the next big creators.
What’s happening - Imagine a world where you could invest in your favourite creator and get rewarded for it. CreatorDAO is created for the sole reason of investing $$ into content creators. They will also provide services to creators like:
Capital
Mentorship
Tech is necessary to create better content and increase its audience.
Inventors then get a small percentage of the creator’s earnings in the future.
The DAO has big names behind it like like a16z, Initialized Capital, Paris Hilton, Garry Tan, and the Chainsmokers.
Our take: If you’re always on the lookout for new content like us and love discovering the next big thing while promoting them among people you know, now’s your chance to get rewarded for it. Here’s to finding the next Mr Beast.
Tornado Cash gets sanctioned 🌪
The US gov has sanctioned their second large crypto consumer company and added them to the SDN (Specially Designated Nationals) list - the “No Fly” list of business - if you’re on it, you can’t do business with anyone in the U.S.
What’s happening - Tornado Cash is a popular crypto service which allows users to hide their transactions and stay anonymous. Even though it was adored by several people, it seems like the favourable crypto mixer was used to launder money. A LOT OF MONEY.
What did Treasury Department find out?
Tornado Cash has been used to launder money for 3 years now;
More than $7 billion worth of crypto has been hidden;
$455 million alone was laundered by a North Korean hacking group
$96 million was laundered through this crypto mixer during the Harmony Bridge heist etc
Why this matters: The SDN list has been used for people on extreme spectrums like terrorists, drug lords, etc But this is the first time it’s being used on a tech tool.
Our take: This could mean, that with more such crypto mixers out there, the end of crypto anonymity could be near. Let’s wait and see.
Crypto Bytes
Coinbase released its Q2 earnings and had a net loss of $1.1b and trading volume was down 29%.
Coca-Cola recently released a new collection on NFT in celebration of Friendship Day and their first anniversary of entering the metaverse.
Lamborghini will be hosting The Epic Road Trip, an extended drop of 32 remarkable NFTs.
NFT Tech Announces Multi-Year Deal With World Table Tennis to help ease the sport into Web 3.
Russia plans to roll out the digital ruble across all banks in 2024
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DISCLAIMER:
None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.