⚡ Hotbit Shuts Down, TON Accelerator News, New Trading Tools, and more!
Discover the latest and greatest Crypto & Web3 products
💡 Intro
🥳 Happy Monday!
Markets are slightly down, with most news being around regulation + changes around crypto taxes following talks in Congress.
Speaking of taxes: there’s been a massive amount of attention on ConsenSys’ latest terms update for Metamask. Discussion went viral on Twitter around it.
People initially suspected Metamask to withold fees through their browser wallet.
But this language added was in relation to their paid products (mostly around Enterprise offerings). So there’s no need to worry (for now at least!).
Also: a special welcome to the TFC Rewards Club members who joined last week! Don’t forget to checkout our latest guide on Venom + NFT claims if you haven’t already.
Hotbit Pause Operations, Tells Users To Withdraw Funds: Hotbit just announced they’re halting service immediately, starting today (May 22nd).
Users have until June 21st to withdraw their funds.
Hotbit is ranked #80 in CEX volume. It’s certainly not the only CEX that’s struggling, as Coinbase has threatened to leave the US if there’s no regulatory clarity and Huobi was ordered to pause this weeekend in multiple counties.
Important Takeaways:
Centralized Exchanges Are Under Fire: This latest wave is from increased regulatory concerns worldwide and is hitting both large and small centralized exchanges.
Be Careful Which Exchanges You Use: This is especially true now as exchanges can become unusable all of a sudden (like Hotbit’s announcement).
Learn How to Self Custody + Use DEXs: Doing this comes with its own challenges, but its clear that centralized exchanges are having more trouble operating. Meaning self custody + using decentralized exchanges might become a must in the future.
One very interesting ecosystem that no one talks about is the TON Network.
They just launched $25M in funding for projects, which includes 50k to 250k per team.
TON powers the Telegram Handle Marketplace, which does 6 figures of volume each week alone.
If you’re a builder: Checkout the application link below, they’re offering both funding + mentorship to projects.
If you’re a trader/investor: Keep watch, there should be some good picks that come out of the accelerator. As always, we’ll keep you up to date of the ones we see once they make the announcements.
Openfort / $3M — Openfort (Web3 infrastructure platform), a site that optimizes crypto account management and enables programmatic transactions through API endpoints, is announced their seed funding round. — Tweet
Sort / $3.5M — Sort, a tool that helps developers to integrate smart contracts into Web3 apps, has successfully raised $3.5 million. This seed funding round was jointly led by the venture capital firm Lemniscap and The General Partnership. — Tweet
Arena Of Faith / $1.75M — Arena of Faith (a Web3 game) has raised $1.75M in seed funding with ChainHill Capital leading the investment, joined by Initiate Capital. — Tweet
Reasoned Art / $1.51M — Reasoned Art (Web3 art) has concluded a €1.4 million seed round, featuring participation from existing investors LVenture Group and Rosario Bifulco, alongside newcomers B-Heroes, MetaVenture Holding, Urania, and various Italian business angels. — LVenture Group
Welcome to TFC’s daily newsletter! Thanks for subscribing, we’re working hard to give you the best info on the most exciting crypto products.
If you’re a builder, investor, or crypto enthusiast, this will benefit you!
👉 Brought to You by Arch: accelerating financial progress for alternative asset holders. A word from our sponsor below:
Unlock the Power of Your Crypto - Arch, a crypto lending platform, enables crypto investors to secure a single loan collateralized by various holdings, all safely stored by top custodian BitGo.
Note: Do you have a product or tool you’re building? Have one you’d suggest? DM us on twitter! We’re always happy to feature products from the TFC community.
Game Wallet
"Turn any GameBoy into a secure offline cold wallet."
Type of Product: Cold Wallet
Purpose of Tool: Game Wallet is an innovative and fun tool that allows people to turn their old GameBoy into a secure offline cold wallet. This physical cartridge provides users with the ability to generate mnemonic phrases and store them safely offline, without any firmware updates.
Recent tool that went viral after the Ledger news.
It’s a cool experiment and one of likely many in the space, around using other devices to create secure storage.
You can store cryptocurrency securely on your old Gameboy which has been sitting on your shelf since before cryptocurrency existed - making it one of the coldest forms of cold storage possible.
Features of Game Wallet:
Introduces randomness in generating keys by having the player interact with NPCs while walking around completing fun quests, RPG style.
It will be able to support cryptocurrencies that use BIP-32 seed phrases, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum
Generates mnemonic phrases that can be saved securely offline without the need for any firmware updates ever.
The software for this product is also open source, allowing anyone to create their own implementation.
Team / Funding / Backers / Other Info: Joseph Schiarizzi, a skilled Solidity developer and Assembly programming enthusiast, started Game Wallet as a side project. After seeing other hardware wallets not living up to their promise of providing true cold storage, the Keyp team decided to finish Game Wallet and made it available to everyone.
Link to product | Link to TFC listing
Caddi
“Save Money On Every Trade"
Type of Product: Trading Tool
Purpose of Tool: Caddi is a cryptocurrency companion browser extension that helps users save money on every trade. It works within the existing on-chain swap workflow, intercepting trades from dApps and providing alternate routes. Furthermore, Caddi offers automatic scanning to ensure users are not signing any malicious contracts, along with support for wallets such as Metamask and exchanges like Binance, Kraken and Kucoin.
Cool + useful trading extension that just went live. Screenshot below of why it’s useful.
Optimal Order Routing: Caddi searches for the most competitive prices available for any token, allowing users to execute trades with one click.
Self-custody Exchange API keys: Sensitive information is kept secure by never leaving the user's device.
Scam Prevention: Websites are scanned for malicious activities or hacks to protect funds.
Security Audits & Stress Tests: Regular security audits and stress tests are conducted to maintain high levels of protection against potential hacks.
Team / Funding / Backers / Other Info: Just today: Caddi boasts of a top-notch group of backers, comprising angel investors and active venture funds such as Outlier Ventures, Orange DAO, and Psalion VC. Though headquartered in London, the company has team members spread across several countries including India, Mexico, Malaysia, and the United States. The founder and CEO is Jaimin Patel while Jose L. Roqueñi serves as CMO.
Link to product | Link to TFC listing
Crypto Events
“Find Your Next Favorite Crypto Event"
Type of Product: Events Calendar
Purpose of Tool: Crypto Events is a calendar that provides users with a curated list of web3 events from all over the world. It offers a range of features to help users find their next favorite crypto event, submit main and side events, and filter events by blockchain network or location.
There’s not many extensive Crypto/Web3 events calendars. This one is extensive + easy to use (props to Mikto + his newsletter for discovering it)
Promotion of Events: Users can promote their events to ensure more relevant people will see it and more people attend.
Event Submission: Users can submit Main and Side Events for consideration on the site.
Event Filtering: Users can filter the events on the site by Ethereum or Solana events, Conferences, Hackathons, NFT events, or other Chain related topics. They can also filter by Location such as Asia, Europe, LATAM, North America, Online or Africa.
Team / Funding / Backers / Other Info: Crypto Events is a database established by Crypto Nomads Club, which is a community for digital nomads and frequent travelers who attend different crypto events globally. Two friends founded it after meeting each other several times at various crypto conferences.
Link to product | Link to TFC listing
ICODrops
"Calendar of active and upcoming ICO & IEO”
Type of Product: ICO Calendar List
Purpose of Tool: ICODrops is a platform that provides access to information about the constantly evolving world of Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs). It offers users three different lists - Active ICOs, Upcoming ICOs and Ended ICOs - all of which are regularly updated. The lists are designed to be viewed like a kanban board, with categories of Inbox, In Progress, and Done.
An ICO Calendar featuring columns for "Active", "Upcoming", and "Ended" projects;
Detailed information and analysis on each project.
A rating system known as “Interest Level” to help investors make informed decisions;
An app version of the calendar that can be accessed from any device;
A list containing bounties from various projects;
Twitter and Telegram accounts for keeping up with the latest news on ICOs.
Weekly newsletters sent to subscribers summarizing upcoming ICOs.
Team / Funding / Backers / Other Info: On February 13, 2023, Caldera, a startup founded in March 2022 by Matt Katz and Parker Jou, had raised $9 million in funding across two rounds. The investment was led by Shaun Maguire of Sequoia Capital and Ani Pai of Dragonfly Capital, with participation from Neo, 1kx, and Ethereal Ventures.
Link to product | Link to TFC listing
Coinshift | Senior Product Designer | Link to position
DappRadar | Social Media Manager | Link to position
WalletConnect | Web3 Communications Associate | Link to position
Cere Network | DevOps Manager | Link to position
Offchain Labs | Blockchain Developer | Link to position
Outlier Ventures | Token Design Associate | Link to position
Magic Square | Back-end/Node.js Developer | Link to position
Treehouse | UI/UX Design Intern | Link to position
Aptos | Software Engineer | Link to position
CoinGecko | Software Test Engineer Intern (QA) | Link to position
How was the newsletter today? Your feedback helps me make this great.
Loved it | OK | Didn’t Like
Anything you want to see? Fill out this form and let us know!
Disclaimer: None of this is to be deemed legal or financial advice of any kind. Always DYOR!