⚡ Blend Hits ATH Of $28M In Daily Volume, New Web3 Funding Sources, DeFi Tooling, and more!
Discover the latest and greatest Crypto & Web3 products
💡 Intro
Blend (from Blur) reaches ATH of $28M in Daily Volume: NFT Lending is heating up, as shown by Blur reaching an all time high of $28M in total daily volume.
The rise in Total NFT Lending Volume over time can easily be seen through this Dune dashboard.
Weekly Volume increased over 4x from 2022 → 2023, but with Blend’s May launch the total NFT lending volume has exploded to over $100M for 2 consecutive weeks.
🔥 Why It Matters:
NFT Lending Is Now Easy To Do: Tool/Platform updates have made NFT lending much easier in 2023. Blur’s addition to the space has brought in many new participants and even big players like Binance are joining in (as we mentioned yesterday).
Expect More NFT Volatility: NFT lenders are typically borrowing against their NFTs to buy other crypto assets. This can cause volatility in prices (as seen every time a new collection is added to Blur).
More Tooling Is Coming: Expect to see more aggregators, price trackers, and other platforms being built, as the NFT lending space should continue to grow in Total Volume.
Building in Web3 is hard: during a bear market, funding can be difficult to come by.
We’re always on the lookout for accelerators/grants/funding for you all, and these 2 new sources are worth a look!
Orange DAO Fellowship of $50K: Orange DAO is one of the most popular Web3 founders/builders groups, with over 1300 founders of Y-Combinator companies in the DAO.
They’re running a new Fellowship soon with 50k in funding + mentorship/networking opportunities attached.
How To Enter: Form in on their homepage here, but don’t delay as the deadline is June 2nd which is soon!
10M In Grants From Solana Foundation for Blockchain x AI: The Solana Foundation recently upped their grants amount to $10M specifically for blockchain + AI.
How To Enter: They have a fast application form, and applicants are typically responded to within 2 weeks. Checkout the form on their main page here.
TradeWaltz / $11.78M — TradeWaltz, a blockchain trade information platform, secured 1.65 billion yen ($11.78 million) in funding, including contributions from Sumitomo Corporation. The total funding raised by TradeWaltz amounted to 5.65 billion yen ($40 million). — Ledger Insights
zkMe / $2M — zkMe, a zero-knowledge identity oracle provider, has successfully secured $2 million in pre-seed funding from Circle Venture, Spartan Group, CMS Holdings, Fenbushi Capital, NGC Ventures, and others. — GlobeNewswire
White Shark / $16M — White Shark, India's first Layer 1 public blockchain, has concluded a $16 million funding round. The investment will support the advancement and implementation of their innovative blockchain technology. — Hindustan Times
Blocktrade / $4.5M — Blocktrade, the gamified asset marketplace, has successfully concluded its exclusive Blocktrade Exchange Token (BTEX) sale, raising a total of €4.5 million. — PR Newswire
Tabi / $10M — Tabi, an NFT marketplace formerly known as Treasureland, has secured $10 million in angel funding from prominent venture capital firms including Animoca Brands, Draper Dragon, Hashkey Capital, Infinity Crypto Ventures, and Youbi Capital.— Coin Telegraph
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AlphaScan
"DeFi Analytics on steroids to scan for crypto alpha."
Type of Product: DeFi Analytics
Purpose of Tool: AlphaScan enables users to gain insights into the cryptocurrency markets by analyzing social media and blockchain data. It provides an easy-to-use interface for users to quickly find alpha opportunities, track wallet activity, analyze sentiment of tweets, and predict market movements. The platform is modular, composable, and decentralized which makes it suitable for everyone from seasoned investors to new traders.
New tool that’s currently waitlist only, that looks very interesting.
We’re going to reach out to them and see if we can get some spots for the TFC community.
Modular & Composable: AlphaScan provides an intuitive user interface that allows users to combine various modules into one powerful platform. This lets them access hard numbers needed for making informed decisions about investing in cryptocurrencies.
Decentralized: AlphaScan runs on a decentralized network so all data is stored securely without any central authority controlling it. This ensures that users’ information remains private while they benefit from the power of collective intelligence through the platform’s AI capabilities.
Sentiment Analysis & Prediction Engine: AlphaScan utilizes AI algorithms to provide valuable insights into the crypto markets by analyzing sentiment of tweets as well as predicting future market movements with accuracy and precision.
On-Chain Data & Wallets Tracking: Through its on-chain data analysis features, AlphaScan enables users to find smarter wallets with Chad-like profitability or other market-moving activities with just a few clicks—no coding required!
Team / Funding / Backers / Other Info: AlphaScan is a company co-founded by Jonathan Graeupner, PhD (DegenMiami) as the CEO and Peter Kim as the CTO. Jonathan brings a PhD from Yale, managerial experience at BCG, and prior success in scaling a startup. Peter holds a BS & MS in Computer Science from Stanford, has served as the CTO of an $8B quant hedge fund in NYC, and has successfully built and sold two startups.
Link to product | Link to TFC listing
Farcaster
“A sufficiently decentralized social network"
Type of Product: Decentralized Social
Purpose of Tool: Farcaster is an open, decentralized protocol for building social networks that is also a decentralized social network. It allows users to send short text message broadcasts that connect to their Ethereum address and developers to create applications with new features on the network.
It is designed to put users and developers in charge of their data, allowing them to move freely between applications.
Farcaster is currently the top decentralized social network we’ve seen in terms of signal to noise ratios.
It’s super useful to be on, particularly if you’re a web3 founder or builder.
Edit: As mentioned from Tradfi in the comments, anyone with a Bankless Citizen subscription can get access to Farcaster.
Decentralized Control: By leveraging decentralized technologies like blockchains, p2p networks and distributed ledgers, Farcaster provides users with control over their social graph and data. This means they have more control over how their information is used and shared online.
Open Source Protocol: The farcaster protocol is open source, enabling anyone to use it for building their own apps or programs within its ecosystem through APIs or other interfaces.
Secure Messaging Broadcast System: Through its messaging broadcast system, users can securely send short text messages to their Ethereum address without having to go through third-party services such as email providers.
Cross Browser Compatible: The farcaster protocol uses WebRTC technology which allows it work across all web browsers (including mobile devices), eliminating the need for plugins or extensions.
Team / Funding / Backers / Other Info: The Farcaster core team is responsible for maintaining the project's repository, which has received contributions from more than 50 developers.
Currently, Farcaster operates on an invite-only basis, with invitations being limited in order to minimize spam. There are three options available for obtaining an invite: reaching out to @dwr on Twitter, asking someone already using Farcaster for an invitation, or running a Farcaster Hub on the mainnet.
Active engagement on social networks or involvement in coding should make it relatively easy to obtain an invite. Farcaster aims to make the system more accessible to everyone by the end of the year.
Link to product | Link to TFC listing
Pulsr
“A new way to discover art on-chain, without the noise."
Type of Product: NFT Discovery
Purpose of Tool: Pulsr acts as a search engine where everyone's NFT journey begins. Through its Discovery Engine, the platform provides users with an opportunity to explore and curate their favorite NFTs from Web3 creators and communities around the world.
Unmatched Exploration: Pulsr implements AI to apply metadata labels on millions of NFTs allowing users to find new NFTs, artists, and collectors across chains, communities, and multimedia from one place based on culture rather than price.
Brighter Discovery Pathways: The more Pulse users use IIII-I Pulsr’s Discovery Engine, the better it gets at recommending NFTs for you and other collectors. Searching, exploring, and bookmarking provides users with better results each time.
Express Yourself: Spaces allow users the ability to curate their owned or bookmarked NFTs on their profile in multi-display options that optimize for display so they can find like-minded people within their community.
Link to product | Link to TFC listing
RociFi
"On-Chain Scoring and Capital-Efficient Lending”
Type of Product: DeFi
Purpose of Tool: RociFi is an decentralized credit market and DeFi lending protocol built on Polygon. It enables borrowers to take out fixed-term, fixed-rate stablecoin loans with reduced collateral requirements, while also allowing lenders to earn interest from depositing their assets into the pools. The protocol uses an on-chain credit scoring API and machine learning algorithms to assess risk and provide capital efficient loans.
On-Chain Credit Scoring API: The protocol's on-chain credit scoring API uses blockchain data, machine learning algorithms, and web 3 risk management technology to assess borrower's creditworthiness in order to provide capital efficient loans.
Fixed Term & Rate Loans: RociFi facilitates fixed term and rate loans with LTVs that depend on one’s credit score.
Borrower Collateral Requirements Reduced: Through its non-transferable NFCS (Non-fungible Credit Score), borrowers are able access loans with reduced collateral requirements.
Interest Earning Opportunities for Lenders: By depositing their assets into the lending pools, lenders have the opportunity to earn interest.
What is NFCS (Non-fungible Credit Score)?
NFCS is a unique identity token linked to an address that provides users access to under-collateralized loans on RociFi. It generates a credit score based on the transaction history of all the bundled addresses, which can be up to 32 in total.
Minting NFCS tokens requires linking wallets with Metamask or WalletConnect, and re-minting or deleting/burning existing tokens is not possible. On-chain analysis reveals which addresses have been added to NFCS bundles.
Link to product | Link to TFC listing
Whale Watching Tool: Useful thread + Dune Analytics Dashboard tool from Defi Mochi for tracking whales:
Aptos | Software Engineer, Programming Languages | Link to position
Safe | PR & Communications Lead | Link to position
Immutable | Solidity Engineer | Link to position
Wintermute | Financial Accountant | Link to position
Rarible | Data Analyst | Link to position
Gitcoin | Illustrator | Link to position
Chainlink | Research Internship | Link to position
Ava Labs | Senior Social Media Manager | Link to position
Blockchain.com | Tax Director | Link to position
Evmos | Software Engineer | Link to position
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Disclaimer: None of this is to be deemed legal or financial advice of any kind. Always DYOR!
Hi. Great read as always. FYI, if anyone here holds Bankless Citizen subscription, they can get access to Farcaster.