This Week in Web3: Friday, May 27, 2022
Callaway Joins LinksDAO as Equity Investor, Chris Dixon announces A16z’s new Crypto fund, Sequoia invest in Polygon, are we entering into a Web3 winter, and can Blockchain repair social media?
Hey Friends,
First up, just wanted to say thanks for subscribing, I hope this newsletter provides some value to you. Feedback always welcome!
This week is a slightly abbreviated version, not because it’s been a quiet week in Web3, nothing of the sort, but because I’ve been traveling, and it’s a holiday weekend and well, I basically ran out of time. Sorry!
Enjoy this week’s digest and Happy Memorial Weekend to those in the US!
Let’s go!
TL;DR
Coindesk: Golf Brand Callaway Joins LinksDAO as Equity Investor, ‘Strategic Partner’
CNBC: Sequoia makes a big bet on Web3, leading $450 million investment in Polygon blockchain
CryptoTimes: Ethereum’s Co-Founder says Blockchain Can Repair Social Media
Overpriced JPEGs: (Not) Okay Bears, Doodles, DeadFellaz, & Much More
All-In Podcast with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg: Elon Musk on Twitter's bot problem, SpaceX's grand plan, Tesla stories, Giga Texas & more
News we’re following
Coindesk: Golf Brand Callaway Joins LinksDAO as Equity Investor, ‘Strategic Partner’
The DAO that wants to buy a golf course is adding a big name to its cap table.
Non-fungible token (NFT) country club LinksDAO has brought Callaway Golf Company (ELY) in on its quest to own and operate an actual golf course.
Callaway, one of the largest golf equipment manufacturers and owner of driving-range game Topgolf, invested in LinksDAO’s ongoing equity round, two people familiar with the investment told CoinDesk.
A representative for LinksDAO declined to comment on the funding. Callaway declined to comment on the fundraise but said: “This marketing partnership is the beginning of our relationship.”
A16z: Crypto Fund 4 by Chris Dixon
Since the advent of computing in the 1940s, there has been a major computing cycle every 10-15 years, including PCs in the ‘80s, the internet in the ‘90s, and mobile computing in the ‘00s. We believe blockchains will power the next major computing cycle, which we call crypto or web3.
Most computing cycles have “golden eras” when the right mix — including new talent, viable infrastructure, and community knowledge — comes together. For example, with mobile computing, the golden era was 2009-11, when companies like Uber, Venmo, Snap, and Instagram were started. Golden eras are when legendary teams are formed, big ideas are hatched, and great products get built.
We think we are now entering the golden era of web3. Programmable blockchains are sufficiently advanced, and a diverse range of apps have reached tens of millions of users. More importantly, a massive wave of world-class talent has entered web3 over the last year. They are brilliant and passionate and want to build a better internet.
That’s why we decided to go big. We’ve been investing in crypto since 2013, and today we’re announcing our fourth crypto fund, totaling $4.5B. Of that, approximately $1.5B will be dedicated to seed investments, and $3B to venture investments. This brings our total crypto/web3 funds raised to over $7.6B.
Sequoia makes a big bet on Web3, leading $450 million investment in Polygon blockchain
Sequoia Capital is playing catchup with arch-rival Andreessen Horowitz in the race to invest in what could be the future of the internet — so-called Web3.
The Silicon Valley venture capital firm led a $450 million investment in Polygon, a blockchain network.
Blockchains are the distributed logs of transactions that underpin many of the world’s major digital currencies. They are maintained by a network of computers, which have to reach consensus across the whole system to confirm transactions and mint new units of currency.
Things we’re reading
Summer 2022: NFT Winter? By Lisa Xu
Last year, NFTs took the world by storm. Trading volume of NFTs topped $13 billion in 2021 — an enormous 43,000% increase compared to year before. We saw a dizzying pace of adoption from consumers, creators, brands, and even governments.
Like many other NFT enthusiasts, I was captivated by NFTs almost immediately. Trading and collecting NFTs quickly became a passion of mine. As my personal collection grew, so did my online connections and communities in the space. For me, there had never been a more exciting time to play on the internet.
Fast forward to May 2022. The equity and cryptocurrency markets are in a record free fall, and it seems that we have entered a bear market for NFTs as well. NFT.NYC is less than a month away, but the chaos of the market has everyone wondering — will the summer of 2022 be the beginning of a long NFT winter?
Key learnings from DAOs, by Linda Xie
This post covers some of my key takeaways from working with DAOs. Most of my experience has been as a delegate for Gitcoin DAO but I’ve also participated in and observed many others. There’s no perfect DAO structure and each one has its own culture so what works for one DAO won’t necessarily work for another. The following reflects my personal experience and perspective and other people might have a different one. The entire space is also constantly iterating to find out what works and what doesn’t.
CryptoTimes: Ethereum’s Co-Founder says Blockchain Can Repair Social Media
Frank McCourt, the billionaire, donated $100 million to create decentralized social media.
he Co-Founder of Ethereum, and the creator of Polkadot, Gavin Wood has suggested that the blockchain can assist in repairing social media. As per Wood the blockchain has all the necessary attributes to change the narrative of Social media and user interaction.
It was revealed that Frank McCourt’s Project Liberty partnered with the Web3 Foundation Polkadot’s project to create a decentralized social media.
He said that the call for Web 3.0 must be a cautious step as it can trigger an era of uncensored posts on the World Wide Web. The leaving of tech giant companies to filter what comes in and out of the web space can be threatening.
Things we’re listening to
Seed Club DAO Podcast: LinksDAO - Mike Dudas
Welcome to season two, episode one of the Seed Club podcast. In this episode, Jess Sloss sits down with Mike Dudas, Instigator, and creator at LinksDAO, a DAO aiming to buy and operate a golf course. We learn about the Links DAO origin story and, how they operate given the regulatory grey market of NFTs that have utility, why we need more DAOs rather than DAO tooling. And what DAOs need to break through to the next level.
Overpriced JPEGs: (Not) Okay Bears, Doodles, DeadFellaz, & Much More
Carly recap’s this week in macro markets and JPEGs from Permissionless! And what a week it's been…
Markets are still down relative to where they were pre-Luna meltdown. However, are NFTs stabilizing?! Or is this a false bottom? Carly lays out how to think about it. Additionally, Carly covers the Okay and Not Okay Bears drama, the Doodles Airdrop and her theories around what it means, DeadFellaz's new power exec hire, and SO much more!
Editors note: I’m sharing this, not because it necessaril;y covers much in the way of Web3 news or insights, but because it’s a fascinating conversation with Elon, which provides a much more reasonable POV of why he attempted to buy Twitter, versus what the rest of the media has been saying. Def worth a listen!
Projects we’re following
Mirror.xyz Development Team: Introducing Writing NFTs
Over the last year, Mirror has built a space for web3 ideas to grow. Thousands of writers – including DAO operators, NFT projects, engineers, investors and protocol teams – have used Mirror to introduce their best ideas to the ecosystem. Their voices have made it a vibrant destination for web3 writing.
At Mirror, we believe the next big idea will be collected as a Writing NFT.
Starting today, you can:
Create your first Writing NFT from your Dashboard
Collect from a list of genesis entries curated by Mirror DAO
Explore the top entries on the new leaderboard