🏛 Crypto Community Relieved by Biden Order’s Balance Yet Wary as Oversight Regime Takes Shape

Hello Defiers! Here’s what we’re covering today:

News

• Crypto Community Relieved by Biden Order’s Balance Yet Wary as Oversight Regime Takes Shape 

• South Korea’s Next President Vows to Reverse Crypto Crackdown and Deregulate Sector

• Avalanche to Invest $290M in ‘Subnets’ for DeFi, GameFi and NFTs

Research Primer

• Decoding The NFT Black Box

Podcast

🎙Listen to the exclusive interview with author Laura Shin in this week’s podcast episode:

Video

• First Look: MoverDAO - a metaverse debit card for everyone. But how?

Links

• Brash and outspoken, Tron founder Justin Sun has always been a controversial figure in crypto: The Verge

• FACT SHEET: President Biden to Sign Executive Order on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets: The White House

• Ethereum Layer 2 developer StarkWare is raising funds at a $6 billion valuation: report: The Block

• Reality Intrudes on a Utopian Crypto Vision: The New York Times

• The devil is in the details, but just read the EO in full, and it's about as good as it gets: Ryan Selkis

• Yesterday @ZyoriTVsat down with @spamandrice on Axie Tuesday for an in-depth interview about streaming, esports, and Axie's future with Origin!: Axie Infinity

Handpicked by The Defiant Team

• Polkadot’s Gavin Wood on Building a Layer 0 to Underpin the Entire Blockchain-Based Economy

• EXCLUSIVE: Andrew Yang Urges Web3 Community to Rally and Shape Inevitable Regulation

• Andre Cronje’s Sudden Exit Leaves DeFi Agog But It’s Right in Character

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DeFi Regulation

🏛 Crypto Community Relieved by Biden Order’s Balance Yet Wary as Oversight Regime Takes Shape 

By Owen Fernau

RELIEF Whew! The cryptocurrency community is breathing a sigh of relief after President Biden issued his hotly anticipated executive order for digital assets on Wednesday. 

BREAKTHROUGH For the last year, Defiers have been bracing for bad news as regulators signalled a clampdown on the industry. While the administration’s 5,570-word directive marks a comprehensive push to rein in the unruly sector with a new supervisory regime, it recognized crypto as a technological breakthrough worthy of support, if it can be developed responsibly.

LEADERSHIP “At a very high level, this is a very positive development,” Kristin Smith, executive director of the Blockchain Association, a Washington-based lobbying organization that represents 80 crypto companies, told The Defiant. “You have the President of the United States saying that digital assets generally are something that the U.S. should maintain leadership in.”

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈

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DeFi Deregulation

🇰🇷 South Korea’s Next President Vows to Reverse Crypto Crackdown and Deregulate Sector

By Samuel Haig

VICTORY The cryptocurrency community just got a friend in very high places in South Korea. Yoon Suk-yeol, the former prosecutor general of South Korea who recently pledged to deregulate crypto assets, secured a narrow victory on Thursday  in the country’s presidential election.

DEREGULATE Yoon, the leader of the opposition conservative People’ Power Party, will see out a single five-year term as Korea’s president after assuming office on May 10. He defeated Lee Jae-myung of the progressive Democratic party. In January, the president-elect promised to deregulate the digital asset sector if he was elected president.

UNREASONABLE “To realize the unlimited potential of the virtual asset market, we must overhaul regulations that are far from reality and unreasonable,” Yoon said. “We must shift to a negative regulation system to ensure at least the virtual asset market has no worries.”

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈

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Subnets

🌨 Avalanche to Invest $290M in ‘Subnets’ for DeFi, GameFi and NFTs

By Samuel Haig

MULTI-CHAIN Following last year’s rise of low-cost scalable Layer 1s, an increasing number of projects are now seeking to foster multi-chain ecosystems under the umbrella of a single network.

SUBNETS Avalanche is the latest, announcing the launch of a $290M incentive fund intended to accelerate the growth of “subnets” within its network on March 8. The move follows the impressive growth of the Cosmos’ IBC ecosystem, and the phased roll-out of Polkadot’s parachain architecture. Ethereum’s Layer 2 networks also command a total value locked of more than $5.5B.

MULTIVERSE The Avalanche Multiverse incentive program is intended to foster the development of app-specific subnet blockchains targeting the DeFi, GameFi, and NFT sectors. Subnets enable developers to customize their chains to be unique from the Avalanche mainnet, including selecting network gas tokens, validator sets, and fee models.

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈

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NFT Primer

Decoding The NFT Black Box

Guest writer Tiffany Priosoetanto-Masrin shares her tips and experience on understanding the increasingly complex NFT space.

HURRICANE Entering the NFT space is a little like venturing out into a hurricane. DeFi, crypto, Web3, and a slew of acronyms come at you from all sides.

OBSTACLES What’s worse is that scammers are taking advantage of this learning curve. Cases of fake websites and malicious links that steal your secret seed phrases and drain your wallet are serious obstacles to adoption. That being said, there is little doubt that NFTs are an emerging medium with the potential to become a global phenomenon, if they aren’t there already. 

PROJECTS Most NFT projects are a form of crowdfunding or investment into a new type of asset in conjunction with real estate, trading cards, luxury handbags, and wine. As an investor at a venture capital firm, I’ll be drawing parallels from the traditional finance world to the metaverse in order to show you a comfortable pathway into NFT investments.

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO👈

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Sponsored Post

Coming of Age: Indices and the Phuture of DeFi

"Aiming for average" may not seem particularly exciting, but the rise of crypto indices that leverage the power of DeFi indicates at least three developing trends in crypto investing. 

Index Funds Indicate Market Maturity

Index funds generated controversy when first proposed. Today, they don't seem particularly new or radical; funds like the Dow Jones Industrial Average are everyday names even to non-investors.

In this vein, the rise of crypto index funds demonstrates a maturing industry. DeFi is still only a small part of crypto - but it’s currently worth over $103 billion with room for growth.

Index Funds Encourage Stability

Aiming for average with an index fund brings much-needed stability to the world of crypto investing. Individual tokens may still be subject to wild swings in value, but larger swathes of the market remain stable. Projects like Phuture encourage stability by automatically rebalancing on the go and by boosting liquidity through token-incentivized programs.

The Phuture of Index Funds

Index funds mark a shift towards passive crypto investment vehicles, tools that open the DeFi and crypto worlds to a broader audience. The Phuture model leverages both approaches, with the goal of launching macro index products that will be relevant for years. The result is a sophisticated, hands-off approach to crypto investing in line with similar approaches to the stock market.

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The Tube

📺 First Look: MoverDAO - a metaverse debit card for everyone. But how?

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Links

🔗 Brash and outspoken, Tron founder Justin Sun has always been a controversial figure in crypto: The Verge

Justin Sun, a budding Chinese cryptocurrency mogul, walked through the shiny lofted atrium of the departure terminal at South Korea’s Incheon International Airport.

🔗 FACT SHEET: President Biden to Sign Executive Order on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets: The White House

Outlines First Whole-of-Government Strategy to Protect Consumers, Financial Stability, National Security, and Address Climate Risks.

🔗 Ethereum Layer 2 developer StarkWare is raising funds at a $6 billion valuation: report: The Block

StarkWare, an Ethereum Layer 2 developer that uses ZK-rollup technology for scaling, is reportedly raising funds at a $6 billion valuation.

🔗 Reality Intrudes on a Utopian Crypto Vision: The New York Times

American CryptoFed is a new kind of company spawned by the advent of cryptocurrency — one that claims, in a way, not to be a company at all.

Ryan Selkis 📖 🖊🔑 @twobitidiot

1/ The devil is in the details, but just read the EO in full, and it's about as good as it gets. Assuming we avoid WW3, it's going to be a busy year for crypto engagement in DC! Some thoughts... 🧵

Axie Infinity🦇🔊 @AxieInfinity

Yesterday @ZyoriTV sat down with @spamandrice on Axie Tuesday for an in-depth interview about streaming, esports, and Axie's future with Origin! You can find the full interview on youtube:

youtube.comspamandrice | Axie Tuesday | EP3Spam sits down with Zyori to talk about the convergence of esports & Axie’s high earning potential and growth within the tournament scene, how blockchain tec...

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Handpicked by The Defiant Team

• Polkadot’s Gavin Wood on Building a Layer 0 to Underpin the Entire Blockchain-Based Economy Gavin Wood’s crypto journey started with Ethereum – he was one of the eight original founders and the project’s CTO in the early days.

• EXCLUSIVE: Andrew Yang Urges Web3 Community to Rally and Shape Inevitable Regulation If there was ever a time when the crypto community believed it would operate unfettered by state rules it’s over. Regulation is coming, and time is running out for DeFi to influence and shape this looming regime. 

• Andre Cronje’s Sudden Exit Leaves DeFi Agog But It’s Right in Character Andre Cronje’s relationship with DeFi has never been simple. 

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🧑‍💻 ✍️ Stories in The Defiant are written by Owen Fernau, Samuel Haig, DeFiDad, and yyctrader, and edited by Edward Robinson, yyctrader, and Camila Russo. Videos are produced by Robin Schmidt, Alp Gasimov and Daniel Flynn. Podcast is led by Camila, edited by Alp.

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