Weekend Reading | Conversation with a16z Partner Chris Dixon; Coinbase NFT Market Aims at Web3 Social
Recommended 10 Excellent Articles in the Cryptocurrency Industry This Week.整理：Hu Tao, Chain Catcher
1. “Dialogue with a16z Partner Chris Dixon: Deep Reflection on Web2, Intense Thinking on Web3”
Recently, Forbes magazine published its list of the world's best venture capitalists for 2022, with a16z partner Chris Dixon topping the list for investing in Coinbase across eight rounds. Now, Chris Dixon holds approximately $3 billion aimed at the Web3 direction and is regarded as one of the most successful investors in the Web3 field, as well as one of its largest proponents. On April 12, Chris Dixon participated in The Verge's "Decoder" podcast, where he detailed his reflections on Web2 and his research thoughts on Web3.
After waiting for over six months and with more than 4 million people on the waiting list, the Coinbase NFT market has finally launched its beta version, unveiling its mysterious veil. Although this NFT market only supports specific invited users for logging in and conducting NFT transactions, most of its pages are freely accessible. Chain Catcher provides a detailed introduction to the functions and features of the Coinbase NFT market based on currently available public information.
3. “Framework Ventures: What Will the Crypto Market Look Like in 2030?”
This week, Framework Ventures announced the completion of a $400 million fund "FVIII" aimed at investing in early-stage blockchain games, Web3, and DeFi startups and networks. At the same time, Framework Ventures published an article envisioning the Crypto market in 2030, believing that the industry will have 1 to 3 billion daily active users, with total TVL exceeding $10 trillion.
4. “Born to Fail: The Intrinsic Fragility of Algorithmic Stablecoins”
Algorithmic stablecoins are inherently fragile; these uncollateralized digital assets attempt to peg the price of a reference asset using financial instruments, algorithms, and market incentives, but they are fundamentally unstable and remain in a state of perpetual fragility. So far, several iterations have struggled to maintain a stable peg, with some ending in catastrophic failure. This article argues that algorithmic stability is fundamentally flawed because it relies on several uncontrollable factors.
5. “Green Pill Podcast: Vitalik Discusses Public Goods Financing and the Crypto Ecosystem”
The podcast "Green Pill," which discusses public goods and the regenerative crypto economy, invited Vitalik Buterin to explore topics such as public goods, quadratic funding, DAO governance, and Layer 2. Vitalik mentioned two common issues in the cryptocurrency space: first, many public goods suffer from funding shortages. For instance, some projects spend hundreds of millions or even billions on securities, liquidity mining, or other ventures but struggle to raise a few million for R&D. Second, suitable public goods are not funded, leading to the emergence of centralized alternatives in the market…
According to Chainalysis's Q1 2022 report, hackers stole $3.2 billion worth of crypto assets in 2021, but in the first three months of 2022, hackers stole approximately $1.3 billion in crypto assets from exchanges, DeFi protocols, and ordinary users, with 97% coming from DeFi protocols.
Among various hacker groups, the North Korean hacker group Lazarus has recently gained significant attention. According to a U.S. Treasury report, this group is behind the theft of $620 million from the Ronin cross-chain bridge, and its Ethereum address has been added to the U.S. sanctions list. Previously, this group was considered the main perpetrator of theft incidents involving many cryptocurrency exchanges, including Bithumb and KuCoin, often employing phishing attacks.
Now, Lazarus Group is seemingly becoming one of the most destructive hacker organizations in the crypto ecosystem. So how did this organization come to be? How do they typically carry out their attacks?
7. “First-Class Cabin Research Report: 'Move to Earn' Stepn”
Stepn is the first sports app built on Solana that combines blockchain token incentives, introducing the innovative concept of "Move to Earn." It has pioneered the empowerment of sports apps through blockchain. Currently, the protocol has been officially launched for about three months, but its daily active user count has surpassed 10,000 and continues to grow. The economic model of this protocol draws from the mainstream dual-token model of Gamefi, still possessing certain risks of a death spiral. However, current data indicates that the model's development is relatively healthy. With its first-mover advantage and good product design, Stepn has become a leading project in this sector.
Following the popularity of the cross-chain bridge Stargate under LayerZero, the cross-chain protocol sector has become a market focus, and Axelar network is another cross-chain interoperability protocol worth attention. Axelar aims to break down the barriers of cross-chain communication, connecting users, assets, and dApps across multiple blockchain ecosystems, allowing developers to build on the best platforms that meet their needs while utilizing the Axelar stack to unlock cross-chain composability and liquidity.
9. “X to Earn: A Formal Challenge to the Death Spiral”
As the market continues to heat up with the trend of X2E, we should not avoid discussing the death spiral; instead, we should actively understand what the death spiral represents and how to challenge it to ensure projects can thrive in its shadow. What kind of operations and philosophies can maximize long-term value for users, project parties, and investors under the shadow of the death spiral? Therefore, at this moment when STEPN is gaining immense popularity and before more X2E products arrive, I will use the cases of Axie and STEPN in this article to propose several viewpoints that I hope will be helpful to the market regarding the death spiral itself.
10. “Cross-Chain Discussions: In-Depth Analysis of 16 Cross-Chain Solutions and Trade-offs”
In this article, DODO Research Institute aims to analyze and compare the performance of 16 cross-chain bridges based on research. Through comparison, readers can more intuitively understand the differences between bridges and the problems they aim to solve, reflecting the future development trends of cross-chain bridges. The focus of this article is on comparing the performance of cross-chain bridges rather than providing an in-depth explanation of cross-chain technology itself. Readers can refer to the citations in the article for a broader understanding of cross-chain technology knowledge.
