Elon Musk vs Twitter Board — #15
It’s been another hell of a week; in a good way of course. We were hit with a shocking piece of news just a few days ago. Yes, the hostile takeover proposition of Twitter by none other than Elon Musk. Either $41 Billion for the Twitter team to pocket and go home, otherwise Elon pulls out his 9.2% Twitter stake, hard choices, hard choices.
But first, welcome back to Art Haus WKLY! On the social front, it seems that we’ve had a muted week, but it’s a totally different story at the backend. Also, we’re on our 15th edition of the newsletter… how time has flown. Don’t forget to subscribe to ART HAUS WKLY so you don’t miss out on our weekly updates in the web3 space.
Now, let’s get on to some of the behind-the-scenes stuff.
Working The Backend
First off, congrats to Gnars DAO! Proposal 51 has been passed with an amazing 63 “(Yar)Gnar” to 0 “Nay” ratio.
69 ETH has also been promptly funded to the Gnars DAO treasury. Check out the Etherscan proof here.
We will be using the bulk of the funds to support extreme sports athletes in their sporting careers, giving Gnars greater publicity in the process. IRL events, collaborations with more athletes, and merch are all in the pipeline: have a look at Nouns Prop 51 for the full funding breakdown.
Just a reminder that the Gnars would be featuring in NFT NYC 2022, so this 69 ETH will definitely come in handy for further athlete sponsorships.
For those still not in our Gnarly Discord, what’s stopping you? We may or may not be working on a collab with a high-profile extreme sports event… get your Gnar and join our Discord for more BTS updates!
And now, let’s get on to the Elon-Twitter saga.
News Of The Week: Elon Musk Vs Twitter Board and the implications for crypto
A few days ago Elon Musk shocked us all by announcing an ultimatum of $41 billion to acquire Twitter and take it private, or a “reconsideration” of his 9.2% stake in the social media company.
“Since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company,"
~Elon Musk in a letter to the Chairman of Twitter
I’m sure many of you have read up extensively on the terms of the “hostile acquisition”, and what this could mean for the future of Twitter. But let’s discuss the implications on crypto as well; would either situation be beneficial for the space?
Centralization Is Out of the Question. But who promotes Decentralization?
In the crypto world, decentralization is a concept we hold dear. After all, one of the key pillars of this space is building a decentralized finance (or DeFi) system, one without overreliance on Governments, large corporations, or wealthy businessmen.
Now Twitter is a large, centralized corporation. Elon is a wealthy businessman with his own large corporation. So the question is, who promotes decentralization?
In the Elon Musk camp, we have a man claiming to be a staunch advocate for “free speech”. According to Musk, that was one of the main reasons he took up a 9.2% stake in Twitter in the first place. But now, Musk sees that Twitter isn’t so much of a free-speech platform after all… and hence plans to change that. This, in other words, is a call for a more decentralized Twitter.
But Twitter has been pretty receptive to communities including the crypto space. Twitter is one of the bigger “crypto-friendly” platforms, where one can send tips in Bitcoin and Ether via the social media service.
At the moment, it’s hard to tell which party champions the more decentralized vision for Twitter.
Ripples Felt In The Crypto Market
We’ve certainly felt some of the side-effects of this shocker in the crypto market, especially price action on Dogecoin. Closely affiliated to Musk, Dogecoin pumped on the news of his 9.2% stake in Twitter, and experienced another pump in this hostile takeover proposition.
Elon also suggested that Dogecoin could be used for Twitter Blue payments (a premium service of Twitter), which amplifies the crypto-element even further.
At the end of the day, taking the company private would mean Elon gets to do what he wants. We’re at the mercy of his ideas on "crypto-adoption” in Twitter.
On the flip side, Twitter staying as a public company probably means the crypto community can continue pushing for further integrations in Twitter, such as an NFT marketplace of sorts.
It’s too early to say where this will go. But eh, I hope it doesn’t pass because I’ve already sold my bag of Dogecoin.
News Daily
11.04.2022
The BAYC ecosystem has been experiencing a massive expansion these past few weeks. First, we saw the takeover of CryptoPunks, then the huge $APE token drop, and even some sneak peeks to their metaverse. Now this, a three-part story about BAYC.
It’s pretty interesting why Coinbase is helping out with storytelling… do read more about this project in the article below!
Coinbase Is Creating A Three-Part Bored Ape Yacht Club Film Series
12.04.2022
Bored Bunny is an NFT project which had red flags surrounding it from the get-go. From the classic endorsement of various celebrities (who endorsed rugged projects before), to two extra collections springing up unannounced, the Bored Bunny team seemed like a rug in progress.
But an unexpected turn of events soon followed… because of a doxx. Read more for the full story!
Rug Pull NFT Project Makes U-Turn After Team is Doxxed
13.04.2022
Coinbase, a well-known crypto exchange, has a long list of applicants to use their NFT marketplace, launch date TBD. They claim that this Coinbase version will solve most of the issues other marketplaces are currently facing; which explains the hype behind this waitlist.
Read on for more details.
Coinbase NFT Marketplace Already Has 4M People On The Waitlist
14.04.2022
It’s disheartening to say that the NFT is synonymous with “scam”, even in the crypto community. Over here, we call them “Rug pulls”. And scammers get smarter, doxxing (or revealing your identity), getting celebrity endorsement, or even legal proof of documents won’t guarantee that a project isn’t a rug.
This insightful article explains more about rug pulls and the question of whether they are a crime or not.
Scams Explained: What Are Rug Pulls? Are They a Crime?
15.04.2022
Meta, the parent company behind Facebook, has given us yet another reason to avoid their metaverse. According to one of Zuckerberg’s recent announcements, their metaverse, Horizon Worlds, will be taking a cut of sales in the virtual world. And this cut is huge… with some users doing the math adding up to 47.5%!
The piece below breaks down the fees in greater detail.
Meta Reveals Hefty Fees for Asset Trading on its Horizon Worlds Metaverse
16.04.2022
If you were in the crypto space about a year ago, you should have witnessed the sale of Jack Dorsey’s first-ever tweet, selling for nearly $3 million. Now the owner of this tweet NFT, Sina Estavi, is trying to flip it for close to 46 million dollars.
Guess what’s the highest bid? Yeah, around $200.
Indifference Pervades $46 Million ‘First Ever Tweet’ Listing
17.04.2022
It’s been around 2 months into the Ukraine-Russia war, and help from the crypto community is still flowing in. Reli3f, a humanitarian initiative founded by web3 entrepreneurs, has just raised $1.5 million for social good in war-ridden Ukraine.
This is in stark contrast with those who donated minimal amounts of Ether for a potential airdrop back in February. After all, it’s those who stick around that are the true heroes.
Web3 initiative Reli3f has raised over $1.5M for Ukrainian aid efforts
Art Haus Blog Releases
This week on the Art Haus Blog, we took a break from Ethereum. With the boom of the Solana NFT space these past few months, we decided to dive deeper into great Solana NFT projects, encompassing a list of 10 awesome SolNFT collections.
Top 10 Solana NFT Projects To Invest In
In this article, we talked about the high-flying projects like DeGods and Taiyo Robotics, but also didn’t leave out smaller plays such as Astrals and FFF.
If you haven’t a clue about what these Solana NFT projects are, do check out this piece for more info!
Podcasts: Worth A Listen
The power of forking w/ Aditi Sriram
In this episode of the podcast “On the other side”, Aditi, an employee at Celestia, hops on the call. Celestia is a modular blockchain network, allowing people to easily deploy a blockchain just like how they would for smart contracts, without the need for an entirely new consensus layer.
In this episode, Aditi talks more about Celestia and what they do, how they execute this modular blockchain solution, and plans in place to scale web3. He also talks about the power of forks in blockchain, and the intriguing concept of “emergent order”.
Do listen in for an insightful sharing by Aditi!
Paul Kohlhaas - DeSci: The Future of Decentralized Science
This time on the Zima Red podcast, we are joined by Paul Kohlhaas, a founder and builder in both the science and web3 spaces. Wow, it’s not every day that you see science being brought into the web3 world! Anyway, they introduce a new idea of “DeSci”.
Paul talks deep about the drug development industry, its monopolistic nature, and how scientists are starting to push for “Open Source Pharma”. In a sense, more funding for research into medicine, and how Paul’s organization, Molecule, is pushing for a DeSci future.
This is certainly an educational listen, especially for those foreign to the pharmaceutics industry.
How DAOs are Revolutionizing Activism with Rebecca Lamis
Gmoney invites Rebecca Lamis, co-founder of UnicornDAO and CEO of Pussyverse, onto The Cutting Edge for this episode. She is a core contributor to many activism-focused communities, such as Ukraine DAO, Unicorn DAO, Pussyverse, and more.
They talk about Rebecca’s start in the web3 world, the DAOs she is currently into, some errors many DAOs are making, and why they can be excellent boosters for activism. Rebecca also speaks of her co-founded Unicorn DAO, key takeaways from founding a DAO, and the future of this Unicorn DAO.
Being a truly inspiring dialogue between gmoney and Rebecca, it’s definitely worth a listen!
Wrap Up
So that’s it folks for this week’s newsletter! Tracking the Elon - Twitter Board saga has been nothing but pure entertainment, and I hope you’ve gained some notions as to how this would inevitably impact the crypto space.
If there’s nothing more, Imma go snipe a Gnar now… see you in the next unit!
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