Dear Bankless Nation,
Here’s what happened this week...
1. Elon Buys Twitter
It’s not easy to take a serial troll like Musk seriously. But he’s a troll that delivers.
When Elon Musk proposed to buy Twitter last week, nobody was sure it was real. After a few weeks of back-and-forth, the deal actually went through for $44 billion yesterday.
Twitter isn’t a particularly valuable company relative to peers. It’s valued at a market cap of $37.5 billion with 217 million daily active users, far behind most of its social media competitors.
But Twitter is a gateway to cultural significance.
Unlike Facebook or Instagram where users add/follow others, its open ecosystem design is akin to a public town square space where every voice can be heard.
It’s why it’s been so effective for crypto.
Much of crypto’s growth is thanks to Twitter—the community relies heavily on it as a coordination pseudo-governance platform to relay information.
Crypto uses Twitter for community building, to get the latest updates, to debate essential topics, and to propagate memes.
If Twitter shuts down overnight, thousands of crypto communities would be severely hamstrung.
Good thing Elon loves crypto. Let’s hope he’s just as serious about giving twitter users the sovereignty they deserve.
Maybe Elon becomes the CEO of twitter.
But we should all be the CEOs of our Twitter Accounts.
📺 Watch our convo with Stani from Aave who got locked out of Twitter for a Joke.
2. Opensea buys Gem
Gem launched in January 2022 as a marketplace aggregator that lets users sweep NFTs in bulk easily across various NFT marketplaces (rather than only Ethereum).
It’s an app designed for the most degen advanced NFT traders - and now its features will be incorporated to the OpenSea experience.
For now, Opensea has confirmed that Gem will operate as a stand-alone product.
With Opensea's massive warchest valuation at $13.3B, the purchase of the top NFT marketplace aggregator for an undisclosed sum was hardly surprising.
For the longest time, Opensea has flirted with the possibility of an IPO. This acquisition therefore seems to have crushed the chances of a Gem token, much to its community’s dismay.
📰 Check out William Peaster’s summary of the events.
3. Launch of the Optimism Collective
Optimism finally dropped its token $OP, as part of the “Optimism Collective” launch.
Here’s a summary:
- The Token House functions as a DAO where $OP token holders will vote on Governance Funds, protocol upgrades, etc
- The Citizens’ House will govern public goods funding. Members hold onchain identities with non-transferable soulbound NFTs
- Public goods funding will be funded by Optimism network’s blockspace revenue
- 5% of the token airdrop was issued last Tuesday (check your eligibility here, but the token isn’t claimable yet!)
📺 Watch our video with Optimism team for the full details
L2 2022 is here…how will it change the landscape?
Place your bets! 👇
Optimism’s token launch represents an important milestone in L2’s trajectory.
Optimism was the 6th highest fee generating chains without a token. What do you think happens when you add one?
Our only question…
Wen Arbitrum token?
Here’s what’s lined up next week:
- Ethan Buchman Cosmos Co-Founder on Why Bankless is Wrong
- William Peaster dropping “How to spot up-and-coming NFTs”
- Ben Giove is diving into the decentralized stablecoin wars
See you next week.
- Bankless Team