Hey, it’s Marc. ✌️

Reporting from ETH Denver this week, the biggest US crypto-infrastructure conference. The bull market euphoria is real and DePin1 is a big narrative. Also: Yuga Labs brings back royalties for NFTs and we saw record inflows into crypto this week.

Be inspired✨

“We have to stop talking about Web3. I’ve worked in the music industry and I never went to a mp3 conference!” – Chris Lyons, GP a16z crypto

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📚 Top 5 Reads

• Pudgies, Ordinals, Gaming – Top NFT Paris themes. By Wizard of SoHo. Link

• 2023 Consumer Crypto Report. By Third Web. Link

• The Problem With Loyalty Coalitions is the Word "Loyalty". By Link

• Dissecting the Points Meta: Best Practices for User Loyalty. By Li Jin. Link

• Web3 brands and NFTs are on a global race for adoption. With Yat Siu. Link

✨ Web3 & Brands

The Return of Royalties💰

• Yuga Labs is no longer supporting zero-royalty marketplaces for some collections. Link

• Back in November, Yuga Labs partnered with Magic Eden to launch the new Magic Eden ETH marketplace that did go live this week - the first major ETH marketplace contractually obligated to honor creator royalties. Link

• y00ts, a bluechip NFT collection, also announced they would be enforcing royalties via Magic Eden. Link

Zoom out: NFTs once promised that artists would earn a share every time their creation was resold, termed "royalty fees". Last August, OpenSea stopped enforcing royalty fees on all new NFTs.

Why it matters: Many brands and artists were lured to Web3 with the promise of a continuous revenue stream to support their work.

Be smart: NFT projects from top brands have earned millions in royalties. If we’re able to bring back royalties, we could see an uptick in brands and creators jumping back in with more solid business cases.

More on Web3:

• VanEck launches NFT marketplace and digital assets platform SegMint. Link

• Circle, the stablecoin issuer, partners with South Korean gaming & metaverse JV Overdare to develop a Roblox-style metaverse. Link

• League of Legends and Counter-Strike juggernaut Team Liquid will roll out an enhanced engagement platform on Sui with Mysten Labs. Link

• Science Magic Studios is shutting down. Link

🌎 Crypto & Macro

Record Inflows📈

• Crypto had a strong week, with BTC hitting $63,000 and ETH hitting a 22-month high.

• Weekly inflows are totalling $598M, marking the fourth consecutive week of inflows. Year-to-date inflows have surpassed the $5.7BN.

• BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF drives a record inflow of $520M in a single day.

• The entire Ethereum ecosystem is rallying. Activity is high on Ethereum, and L2s and side chains posted triple-digit gains in recent month.

• Year to date, Bitcoin is up more than 45%, making it a top performer among any kind of asset even after surging last year.

Demand shock: Bitcoin is seeing $607M on new demand per day, while this is being met with $46M of new coins being mined into existence.

Zooming out: We’re officially in the bull market now. Institutional investors are entering the market, and many of them haven’t yet been approved by their firms to put their clients into Bitcoin.

Why it matters: Soaring prices also drives private financing (aka “crypto-price innovation cycle”). Last week, EigenLayer, a restaking2 protocol on Ethereum, raised $100M at a $1B+ valuation led by a16z crypto. The rolling 3-month-average now sits at $196M, compared to the rolling 52-week average of $174M.

More on Crypto:

• Uniswap reveals wallet browser extension and other tools for easier cryptocurrency transactions. Link

🧠AI

• Mistral AI releases new model to rival GPT-4 and its own chat assistant. Link

• Microsoft made a $16M investment in Mistral AI. Link

🏗️ Start-ups & Tools to watch

• Story Protocol: Programmable IP on-chain with a universal registry standard for seamless IP licensing and remixing.

• MetaStreet: Borrow against your digital assets, incl. NFTs.

• LimeChain: A leading blockchain consulting & development agency with 120+ chain-agnostic devs. Link*

*partner of Dematerialzd.

💰 Money Moves

• Renzo: Binance Labs invests in Ethereum liquid restaking protocol. Link

• BounceBit: The Bitcoin restaking protocol raised $6M in seed funding; already boasts over $545 million in TVL. Link

• Ether.fi: The Ethereum liquid restaking protocol closes a $27M investment round. Link

• Backpack: The centralized exchange (CEX) has closed a $17M strategic Series A funding round, at a valuation of $120M. Link

• Avail: An Ethereum data network to rival Celestia, raised $27M in seed funding co-led by Founders Fund and Dragonfly. Link

That’s all for now, folks. Thank you for being part of the journey.Talk soon,

– Marc

PS: Follow me on LinkedIn and X for shorter insights.

PSS: Get a 10% discount on Token 2049 in Dubai with the code “MARC10”. ✨

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