Alphabet's big Web3 investments

Welcome back to Decentra Daily, and may the odds be ever in your favor. 

She looks like an NFT we'd mint.

Estimated read time: 4 minutes 10 seconds

Today's stories:

• Alphabet goes hard into web3

• Today's Twitter Tidbits

• Who owns the first NFT?

• Top NFT sales of the day

Alphabet drops serious cash into web3

You know those web2 tech giants and traditional banks that are supposed to be the opposite of web3?

Yeah, turns out they’re all heavily invested in web3.

Blockdata looked into blockchain investment activity by the biggest public companies and banks. 

According to them, 40 organizations invested over $6 billion in exchanges, studios, apps, and other crypto projects between September 2021 and June 2022.

Let’s breakdown the data

Most active investors

• Samsung: invested in 13 companies

• UOB: 7 companies

• Citigroup: 6 companies

• Goldman Sachs: 5 companies

Biggest investors

• Alphabet: Spent $1,506 million in 4 rounds

• Blackrock: $1,171M in 3 rounds

• Morgan Stanley: $1,100M in 2 rounds

• Samsung: $979M in 13 rounds

• Goldman Sachs: $698M in 5 rounds

• BNY Mellon: $690M in 3 rounds

• PayPal: $650M in 4 rounds

Most popular niches

• NFTs: 19 companies in the NFT space

• Marketplaces: 12 companies

• Gaming: 11 companies

Which projects are getting heavy investment?

Investors are dropping the biggest bucks on crypto custody solutions, companies that help move, track, and secure money into and on blockchains.

• Fireblocks ($550M deal involving Alphabet)

Described as “the most successful and least-known company in the blockchain space” by their CEO, Fireblocks provides crypto custody software across 25 different blockchains and was valued at an enormous $8 billion earlier this year.

• Circle ($550M round with participation from Blackrock)

Circle “bridges the traditional financial system and the world’s leading public blockchains,” with their tokenized version of the US dollar, USDC.

• Anchorage Digital ($350M deal involving PayPal and Blackrock)

Anchorage Digital was the first federally chartered cryptocurrency bank.

Here’s the full report.

Today's Twitter Tidbits

Here are few tweets from Web3 that caught our eye today:

• Well it seems like Pudgy Penguins are back....we noticed crypto Twitter buzzing about these with a 400 ETH sale (wtf). We wouldn't be investing in this, our guess is a pump and dump, careful out there.

• PayPal has taken another step towards becoming crypto compliant by joining the Travel Rule Universal Solution Technology (TRUST) network. You can learn more about this here.

• Uniswap bans 253 wallets to adhere to US sanctions. These wallets are claimed to be owned by criminals and hackers or interfere with US government sanctions. Likely a necessary step for Uniswap to take to avoid headaches for themselves.

Who owns the first NFT?

On 5/2/14 at 21:27:34, before Ethereum or standard tokens, artist Kevin McCoy minted the first ever NFT.

Called Quantum, it’s a trippy video of oscillating colors and patterns:

Quantum was minted on the Namecoin blockchain – a Bitcoin spinoff designed as a domain naming system.

Due to its purpose, Namecoin tokens work a little differently. One of their quirks is that users need to reclaim them every 250 days – similar to traditional domains.

In 2015, McCoy did not re-register Quantum, and the “name” remained expired on the chain until last year when it was bought for a couple cents by somebody else.

And that’s where the trouble starts…

Contested ownership

With Quantum’s original entry expired, McCoy “reminted” his art on Ethereum and sold it for a cool $1.47 million to collector @sillytuna, just as the bull market was starting to slow.

But during the sale's runup, @earlynft (who collects Namecoin NFTs and is *maybe* a bit of a troll) claimed the expired name – and according to them, ownership of Quantum.

As far as @earlynft is concerned, all @sillytuna bought was an Ethereum “print” of the original NFT.

In response, McCoy (and Sotheby’s) argue that when Quantum expired, its ownership was removed from the blockchain, meaning they're allowed to re-mint and transfer ownership.

The resulting legal dispute is underway. But who’s right?

In favor of @EarlyNFT

A February article from Ledger Insights, back when the lawsuit was filed, makes a good argument by appealing to the purpose of Namecoin.

They say, if you don’t renew your domain name, someone else can claim it – so why not the same with Namecoin tokens?

In favor of Kevin McCoy

But, if a domain name expires and you claim it, you don't usually get rights to the old site content.

So what exactly does @earlynft own? Quantum, or the "name" once associated with Quantum’s metadata?

About that metadata

The original Quantum metadata says that rights go to “whoever controls this blockchain entry.”

Does ‘blockchain entry’ mean the Namecoin name? If so, it seems like @earlynft has a case.

At the same time, the whole thing is based on somebody noticing an early blockchain quirk and trying to cash in on NFT history – which makes their case a bit distasteful.

Top NFT sales of the day

1. @BoredApeYC #5718 - 150 ETH ($242,737.8)

2. @BoredApeYC #1071 - 82.3014 WETH ($133,184.83)

3. @BoredApeYC #9384 - 83.69 ETH ($131,822.59)

4. @BoredApeYC #6331 - 79 ETH ($127,841.38)

Bored Apes reign supreme, but their prices have been dropping. Those are some nice Apes at discounted prices.

Headlines of the day

• Many Bored Ape NFTs Are in Danger of Getting Liquidated as Borrowed Money Comes Back to Bite

• Supermodel Heidi Klum Has Always Been an Artist. Now, She Tells Us Why She’s Making Paintings of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs

• Prosecutors want to claim NFTs as securities, alleges legal team of former OpenSea employee

Disclaimer: Nothing in this article/newsletter should be considered financial advice. The purpose is to inform readers of the current trends and news in the web3 space. We encourage every reader to do their own research and not act upon information put forth by Decentra Daily.