#159 - The ultimate Ethereum reading list 📖

GM and welcome to Decentra Daily.

We're the newsletter that curates your web3 news, so you can stay informed while staying zen.

* Our founding community members are assembling – join them! Use the SHARE button ⬇️

Today,

1. The ultimate Ethereum reading list

2. New segment: In case you missed it

3. Is this the most mysterious crypto whale wallet?

Plus, all the web3 headlines, memes, and Tweet of the day.

Top 24 hr collection volume

via CoinMarketCap

1. BAYC - 101 sales earning 7,044.09 ETH (0.01%)

2. MAYC - 349 sales earning 5,316.93 ETH (0.02%)

3. Moonbirds - 589 sales earning 3,728.57 ETH (0.02%)

4. Doodles - 472 sales earning 2,582.45 ETH (0.04%)

5. Clone X - 398 sales earning 1,894.89 ETH (0.00%)

#1 Wanna up your knowledge? Here's the complete Ethereum reading list

Here's a cool resource for those who like to delve deep into the fundamentals of web3.

Rich Falk-Wallace, CEO of research firm Arcana, has put together a comprehensive reading list on the Ethereum blockchain

– It covers why Ethereum works like does, how The Merge affected the network, and what sidechains such as Polygon do to improve the user experience.

Rich compiled 34 articles and posts on the preferred protocol for NFT projects (inc. some of his own writing), which is too many for us to list here.

So we'll highlight our favorite 5 articles, and direct you to his Twitter thread to explore the rest:

#1 Ethereum whitepaper

Required reading for any real degen. This whitepaper lays out the concept of a "next-generation smart contract and decentralized application platform" – a "foundational layer" that takes the ideas behind Bitcoin and runs with them.

#2 Why Proof of Stake?

Two years before The Merge, Vitalik makes three arguments for why Ethereum should transition from the Proof of Work security mechanism used by Bitcoin to consensus-based Proof-of-Stake validation.

#3 Ethereum is a Dark Forest

This deeply technical blog post by Dan Robinson and Georgios Konstantopoulos of Paradigm explains MEV – "miner extractable value".

#4 Why do Layer 2 sidechains have tokens?

Coinbase's new sidechain, Base, won't have a token. So why do protocols like Polygon and Arbitrum need them? In this thread, @100y_eth looks at how L2 tokenomics enable further decentralization.

#5 What excites Vitalik about Ethereum

At the end of 2022, Vitalik wrote in length about 5 aspects of the network he created which still excite him today.

Reading all 34 of these Ethereum articles will get you covered on every basic aspect of the Ethereum protocol.

That includes what's left in Ethereum's awesomely detailed roadmap:

Although, by the time you've read all the links, we'll probably be in web5, and Ethereum will have become a sentient AI overlord who only answers to Vitalik.

Here's the original thread with the reading list.

Notable Tweets ✅

On the web3 wire

The Playboy MetaMansion will open this year 👯‍♀️The virtual world will also be open to non-community members, the magazine announced at NFT Paris.

A forking incident slows Solana 🐌The blockchain started forking over the weekend, with validators downgrading software to restore activity.

Soon, you'll no longer be able to trade Binance's BUSD on Coinbase 🛑Coinbase will suspend trading of BUSD on March 13 due to the coin failing to meet "listing standards."

#2 Artblocks is building a marketplace and farming rocks floor prices

New segment time!

Here's a recap of some bigger stories that didn't make last week's newsletters.

• Artblocks adds marketplace functionality

• Zeneca replaces Ryan Carson as host of DailyDose

• Airdrop farming affects bluechip floor prices

Artblocks commits to making its own marketplace

When Opensea announced it would no longer enforce royalties above 0.5 percent, it affected one NFT niche in particular: art platforms.

These curation sites nurture the best blockchain artists, giving collections a stamp of authority, and unknown creators a valuable signal boost.

Many art platforms use royalty models to limit the cost of NFTs – collectors can buy at a low price, and reward creators later on if work performs well on secondary markets.

It's a traditional way to support artists. And it's now under threat from the big marketplaces.

So what can be done to protect these essential incubators?

Artblocks – a home for generative art projects on Ethereum – is arguably the biggest art platform in the space.

In response to Opensea's changing stance, Artblocks' CTO tweeted that they'll be adding their own marketplace functionality.

So now, collectors can browse and buy pieces directly through the Artblocks site:

Zeneca takes over DailyDose – merges it with ZenDaily

DailyDose – the Twitter space for general NFT discussion – had become of Web3's biggest venues.

But while the show grew, so did the controversy around its host, Ryan Carson.

Over the past few weeks, Ryan was involved in a series of highly suspect moves, from sketchy promo for his investment fund to spending questionable amounts on BTC ordinals...

With his already-fragile public reputation plummeting, Ryan resigned from DailyDose – handing the reigns to well-known NFT influencer, Zeneca.

Zeneca has merged the DailyDose show (or at least, its audience) into his own similar space, ZenDaily.

BYAC and other blue chips are rocked by airdrop farming

The trend of hardcore traders accruing huge $BLUR rewards by buying and selling large numbers of NFTs reached new heights toward the end of last week.

In fact, two of the biggest airdrop farmers – machibigbrother and franklinisbored – posted so much activity, they broke market records and wobbled the floor prices of some of the biggest NFT collections.

Over the weekend, BAYC, MAYC, Azuki, and Moonbirds saw floor price drops of around 10 percent.

The BAYC floor dropped below 60ETH before rebounding...

Decentra Daily is brought to you by icy.tools

The most elite NFT traders need the iciest tools.

icy.tools is a one-stop shop for Ethereum NFT tracking and analytics, helping you buy, mint, and sell better.

With icy.tools, you can:

• Easily browse NFT sales across marketplaces

• See what's minting in real-time

• Create mint alerts and custom watchlists

• View historical trends for any NFT collection

• A bunch more stuff

Up your trading game with an icy.tools premium subscription.

#3 Is this the most mysterious crypto wallet?

Last up today, some intriguing sleuthing from Crypto Twitter.

In a tweet, @jconorgrogan, who's a director at Coinbase, shared what might be the most stone-cold, diamond-handed wallet in all of web3.

This wallet bought 250K ETH – $75,000 worth – during the network's initial coin offering back in the summer of 2014.

...and that's it. No more trades or transactions. Just 250K of Ether maturing for nearly a decade.

What's that investment worth now? Over 407 million dollars.

Not bad. Not. bad. 😅

Here's the Etherscan address, if you want to snoop.

So who owns this wallet? 🤷‍♀️ Presumably someone with connections to the early days of Ethereum.

Conor doesn't know the owner's identity – but he does say it's the only whale wallet he's seen with pure, untouched ICO ETH.

So is this the greatest whale ever?

Possibly. This wallet could belong to the ultimate Ethereum maxi, to whom bear markets are but ripples in the crypto ocean.

What's more likely, though, is that the owner of this wallet lost their seedphrase (the private key needed to access the wallet)...

...or, they're not *around* anymore. ☠️

Have a great day! 👋

Meme of the day

What we're reading this week