BLUR drops 85% 📉, Polygon zkEVM Mainnet ⚡, is web3 VC funding dead? 💰

The Blur NFT marketplace launched its native token on February 14. 

Sign Up|Jobs|Advertise|View Online TLDR Daily Crypto Update 2023-02-15 Don't let your Crypto or DeFi product become 2023's cautionary tale (Sponsor) For many, the collapse of FTX was the last nail in the coffin. Trust is at an all time low, slowing adoption and innovation. Gaining trust back by building is key. Coinspect is your security partner. Our security experts will review your source code, run penetration tests, and do everything necessary to protect your dapp, smart contract, or blockchain implementation against potential breaches and exfiltration attempts. You'll get the peace of mind to keep building — and 3rd-party validation that will instill confidence in users and investing partners. Join dozens of leading blockchain companies and talk with our experts today. 📈 Markets & Business US Crackdown Seeks to Push Crypto Back to the Fringes of Finance (10 minute read) This article provides updates on the latest in US crypto regulation news. US financial regulators are taking a tough stance against the crypto industry by limiting access to the US banking system. This is likely to hinder new crypto projects and impact existing ones. The wall between crypto trading and the banking and securities markets is designed to guard against potential systemic risks. NFT Marketplace Blur Launches Native Token, BLUR Price Drops 85% in a Matter of Hours (2 minute read) The Blur NFT marketplace launched its native token on February 14. The marketplace gave away 'care packages' as incentives to users who conducted trades, listed NFTs, and participated in bidding on the Blur marketplace. BLUR reached a high of $5.02 but has since dropped more than 85%. 8,798 unique addresses held BLUR tokens and 18,900 transfers had taken place by 2:10 pm on Tuesday. 🚀 Innovation & Launches Polygon Sets March Date for zkEVM Mainnet Beta To Go Live (2 minute read) Polygon has announced that its zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) beta main network will go live on March 27. The team will be sharing more details about the network and its security measures in the lead up to the launch. Polygon's zkEVM testnet went live last October, enabling Ethereum developers to move their smart contracts from the main blockchain without needing to reprogram them. Since then, over 75,000 ZK proofs and 5,000 smart contracts have been deployed. Ordinals Gain Momentum With 76,000 NFTs Minted to Bitcoin (2 minute read) Ordinals is rapidly growing, with over 76,400 inscriptions created to date. The project saw a spike on February 9 with over 20,800 inscriptions in a single day. Ordinals stands out from other similar projects by inscribing digital assets directly onto satoshis. Developers have inscribed JPEGs, audio files, videos, and even video games to test the limits of the Bitcoin blockchain. Bitcoin fees topped $92,220 on February 12 for Ordinals transactions alone. 💡 Guides & Tutorials Here's the bullish case for DeFi stablecoins (8 minute read) This Twitter thread presents a bullish case for DeFi stablecoins despite regulators cracking down on BUSD. DAI, a decentralized stablecoin, has a monetary premium due to Spot liquidity, a USD peg over time, support in many DeFi protocols, and real-world usage. Centralized stablecoins also have a premium, depending on their adoption, regulation compliance, liquidity, and trust. The SEC's charges against BUSD will result in a shift in premium in favor of USDC, USDT, and DeFi stablecoins. Is Funding For Web3 Ventures Dead? (12 minute read) The past year has been a difficult one for seed-stage financing. This article explores the current fundraising environment by analyzing data from the past six years. It covers how the current blockchain fundraising environment compares to the bear market of 2018 and provides a framework for founders to survive the current market. Seed stage activity is still high, so builders who can validate their assumptions don't have much to worry about. 🦄 Miscellaneous Bored Ape Owner Burns $169K NFT to Move It From Ethereum to Bitcoin (6 minute read) Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) #1626 was permanently removed from circulation on Ethereum this weekend and symbolically transferred to Bitcoin. The burn took place using a newly developed feature for Ordinals named Teleburn. Teleburn allows users to assign an existing asset from another network to a Bitcoin Inscription while removing it from circulation, enabling the token to be transferred between chains. A spokesperson from Yuga Labs says the company believes the Inscription of BAYC #1626 is an illegitimate Ape. Stablecoin Issuer Paxos Burns $700M Binance USD in 27 Hours Amid Regulatory Pressure (2 minute read) Paxos has burned more than $700 million of BUSD tokens since Monday. The $703 million worth of tokens was transferred to a burn address. It represents 6% of the total coins in circulation. This is a sign of investors exiting BUSD quickly. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao expects BUSD market capitalization to only decrease over time. ⚡ Quick Links How the Sovereign SDK works (10 minute read) The Sovereign SDK is a free and open-source toolkit for building zk-rollups. Invariant Testing WETH With Foundry (43 minute read) This guide covers how to write invariant tests from the ground up for Wrapped Ether. "Fat Protocols" or "Fat Apps?" (10 minute read) This article looks at where the most value will accrue within the web3 tech stack, covering topics such as aggregation theory, web3, DeFi tech stacks value accrual, whether Ethereum has a moat, app-chain pros and cons, and dYdX. If you are in a hiring position, you may want to hire crypto talent through our free job board. If your company is interested in reaching a crypto-savvy audience, you may want to advertise with us. If you have any comments or feedback, just respond to this email! Thanks for reading, Dan If you don't want to receive future editions of TLDR Crypto, please click here to unsubscribe.