Coinbase Perpetual Futures Expands

📢 Sponsor | 💡 Telegram | 📰 Past Editions

Good Morning,

SEC moves to delay more Bitcoin ETF applications. Apparently, it’s not just market participants who are tired of this move by the SEC Chair, but lawmakers too. The Top G was grilled by lawmakers in a House committee hearing.

In Today's Email:

• What Matters: Coinbase perps for retail 📈

• Founders Highlight: Keone of Monad 👨‍💻

• Deal Flows: IYK $16.8M seed round 🌱

NOTEWORTHY READS

• Austin Campbell’s read on how to think about RWA tokenization.

• Decentralised.co’s read on mapping the new internet.

• DeFiSquared’s read on the status of FTX estate’s holdings.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY…?

This spot could be your company - in front of thousands of web3 builders and investors! We are looking for early sponsorship partners. Fill out this form and we'll get in touch :)

WHAT MATTERS

Coinbase Perpetual Futures for Non-US Retail

State of play: The Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) has granted Coinbase International Exchange the authority to offer perpetual futures to eligible non-US retail customers.

• In the forthcoming weeks, Coinbase Advanced will commence offering eligible customers access to regulated perpetual futures contracts.

• Coinbase International is well-funded through its Insurance Fund and Liquidity Support Program using USDC, a liquid stablecoin, not an exchange token.

• Coinbase doesn't engage in market making as liquidity is supplied by vetted, independent providers.

Why it matters: ~75% of worldwide crypto trading volume is attributed to the crypto derivatives market, underscoring the significant demand from traders for such derivatives.

For builders and investors: This further exemplifies that DeFi builders should build crypto products for crypto-native audiences first.

• Unlike consumer tech products, financial products have different considerations and customer bases.

• Building financial products for institutional clients should not be the first approach that early-stage DeFi builders aim to do.

BUILDER-INVESTOR HIGHLIGHT

Keone Hon, Co-Founder & CEO of Monad Labs

Keone Hon is the co-founder and CEO of Monad Labs, a decentralized, developer-forward L1 smart contract platform that ushers in a new paradigm of possibility through pipelined execution of Ethereum transactions.

Previous backgrounds: Keone Hon completed two Bachelor's degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics, as well as two Master's degrees in Finance and Computer Science, all within four years at MIT.

• Keone has 10 years of experience as a quant at three different companies: Getco, Jump Trading, and Jump Crypto.

• In 2022, he founded Monal Labs.

The big idea: Monad aims to redesign the EVM execution system, using the pipelining technique to allow non-overlapping transactions to be run in parallel.

Take a peek at our referral reward at the bottom of this issue. Share this newsletter and receive our list of 100 smart crypto investors' wallet addresses 👇

INSIGHTS

Anubis Rug Theory: Laundered via $PEPE

The Anubis rug event saw $60M in ETH transferred to a wallet using Tornado Cash.

NFT Ethics provided an alternative theory that suggests a premeditated rug by Sisyphus and his accomplices, with funds laundered via $PEPE.

• The day before the Anubis rug, Sisyphus or Kevin Pawlak, promoted the project on Discord, stating he bought $420K and planned to buy more, assuring everyone would be refunded if things failed.

• Sisyphus claimed the project "cannot rug" and was safe, with all funds held by fully doxxed 19-year-old Beerus (Ethan Cheung), son of prominent Hong Kong horse racing figure Mike Cheung Shun Ching.

• Anubis's funds were drained the next day. Beerus stated he received a malicious PDF via email that compromised his computer/wallet, apparently from Sisyphus on the morning of October 29, 2021.

• Sisyphus shared an attacker's IP address, tracing back to HK where Beerus resides.

• However, NFT Ethics verified the IP, finding it belongs to Russian VPS provider PQ Hosting.

• NFT Ethics observed that the first wallet interacting with the Anubis Rug 3 wallet was funded by FixedFloat, an exchange without KYC procedures known for laundering funds from various hacks and scams.

• NFT Ethics found FixedFloat funded $PEPE holders linked to DegenHarambe (Zach Testa) & SumFattyTuna (Max Zim). Zim, reportedly a former roommate of Sisyphus, is closely connected to him.

• ZachXBT traced laundered Anubis funds to OKX & Stake. NFT Ethics found connected wallets initiating large transfers to Stake and FixedFloat since $PEPE's April 14 launch.

The full thread is available here.

DEAL FLOWS

IYK $16.8M Seed Round

Deal flows remained steady 💼 — we saw $50M+ in deals.

IYK, a web3 startup aiding brands like Adidas and Johnnie Walker in merging physical and digital spaces, secured $16.8M in seed funding.

• a16z crypto led the round with participation from 1kx, Collab Currency, Lattice Capital, and others.

• IYK is an alumnus of a16z Crypto Startup School, which typically invests $500K in startups for a 7% equity stake.

• IYK plans to hire a business development executive as part of its expansion. With a current team of ten, IYK also intends to increase its engineering staff.

Deal flows in the past week:

• Zunami Protocol, Undisclosed $ Angel Round

• Pimlico, $1.6M Pre-Seed Round

• Restake Finance, $500K Seed Round

• Anchor Watch, $3M Seed Round

• Avantis Labs, $4M Seed Round

• Fhenix, $7M Seed Round

• Cygnetise, $3M Pre-Series A Round

• Rated, $12.8M Series A Round

• 0xScope, Undisclosed $ Private Round

• Bril Finance, $3M Seed Round

QUICK BITES & MEME

• Coinbase rolls out perpetual futures for non-US retail users.

• US House Bill seeks to centralize off-chain crypto transactions.

• Circle intervenes in Binance’s SEC case.

• FTX Bankruptcy Claims soar in value as $7.3B recovered.

• Binance sells Russian units to day-old CommEX, and exits the country.

• BIS wants countries to set up legal frameworks to support CBDCs.

• Kraken plans to offer trading in US-listed stocks.

• Curve Founder Michael Egorov settles entire debt position on AAVE.

• Gemini pulled funds from Genesis months before the bankruptcy filing.

• SEC delay spot bitcoin ETFs from BlackRock, Valkyrie, and Bitwise.

If you enjoy reading this issue, please consider subscribing. It takes 1 minute of your time but it would mean the world to us 🙇

Disclaimer: All the information presented in this publication and its affiliates is strictly for educational purposes only. It should not be construed or taken as financial, legal, investment, or any other form of advice.