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Korea using Blockchain in Democratic Process; China’s Ban; Bitmain KYC; Binance Labs Incubator; 95% ICOs Trading Below ICO price 🎊Our fifth podcast with Crypto investors Richard Lee and Mike Chen is out. 🎊 Check it out ! In this episode, Joyce is joined by Crypto investors (left), founding partner of GBIC (Global Blockchain Innovative Capital), and (right), founding partner of GBIC and CEO of Block72. Both Richard and Mike have been seasoned crypto investors, and they look at companies from both Asia as well as the US. Their investments include Logos Network, Hadron Cloud, Origo, Airswap, and more. Richard Lee Mike Chen 🤔 Timestamps and discussion points from the podcast 1:45 — Introduction to GBIC and Block72 from Richard Lee and Mike Chen6:50- Markets in China and US, such as megacap ICOs, valuations, reverse-ICOs in Asia, VCs coming into the play16:14- Investment in Asian projects vs US projects, differences and how to think about them31:00- How being a global fund with reach in different countries is advantageous for a volatile market in Crypto34:45- Large tech companies in China doing reverse-ICOs outside of China38:20- Potential for India as the next market is is a multi-strategy crypto fund with offices in New York, Shanghai and Seoul. is a global consulting firm specializing in blockchain and distributed ledger technology, with offices in multiple offices across the world including New York, Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul, and San Francisco. GBIC Block72 Subscribe 🌟 China’s Ban This Week A number of government announcements came out from China this week banning various crypto activities in mainland. A quick take from me on each of these bans: Beijing’s ban of was targeted primarily to purge shillcoins. And there are of them in China commercial venues from hosting cryptocurrency events lots Blocking in the mainland can easily be circumnavigated by VPN (And many people already use VPN to get around to access Facebook/Google) access to over 120 offshore exchanges’ websites — lots of the accounts were originally just shilling coins, the good ones will have their bans lifted and the bad ones will figure out other ways to target citizens A number of media Wechat accounts have been banned have also been banned, but I think this will merely create short-term impact to the market, create large spreads until the Chinese figures out another way Large Alipay and Wechat transactions for crypto purchases To understand my thoughts in more detail, check it the full writeup here 🌟 Top News in Asia from Wednesday through Friday WSJ- after the government imposed a wide-ranging ban on local exchanges and fundraising for digital currencies. China is tightening its clampdown on cryptocurrencies, nearly a year https://on.wsj.com/2Lri9m2 Crackdown continues: Chinese authorities issue joint warning on ‘Illegal’ crypto fundraising. http://bit.ly/2P6bEHJ Binance Labs to hand out $500,000 to each program participant in exchange for a 10 percent stake in the business. https://tcrn.ch/2LpbYPn Bitmain introduces mandatory KYC. http://bit.ly/2P39sAz Over 95% of ICO tokens which got listed on Chinese major crypto exchanges . trade below the ICO price in the first half of 2018 http://bit.ly/2P45oAd South Korean political parties are debating the idea of , with advocates calling for the introduction of blockchain-powered voting systems. using blockchain technology as part of the democratic process http://bit.ly/2P1Va3f Singapore Central Bank partners with Deloitte, Nasdaq on blockchain asset settlement. http://bit.ly/2P3PXI1 . Philippines, Thailand, and South Korea are moving towards creating the next crypto valley http://bit.ly/2LpwvDi 💰 Deals Singapore-based fintech company in a private sale round.to create a cryptocurrency wallet for handling transactions globally. X Infinity has raised $20.5 million http://bit.ly/2MtukV1 , has raised an undisclosed amount of investment for its seed round led by SoftBank China Venture Capital, Baidu Ventures, Danhua Capital, and Fenbushi Digital. Atlas Protocol, an open protocol for blockchain interactive advertising and marketing http://bit.ly/2Mw1PWG Aly, the parent company behind the stock and cryptocurrency tracking app Spiking, has closed its pre-series A round with US$880,000 in funding. http://bit.ly/2MwS4Hu 💰 Coin and Token News Blockchain Seoul 2018 — B7 CEO Summit to be held on Sept 17 — , will talk about the direction of blockchain development and technology trajectory. Kathryn Brightman, CEO of Tezos, and Don Song, CEO of Oasis Labs http://bit.ly/2MsRL0o Jihan Wu from Bitmain: “ ” I believe ICOs are kind of an unsustainable financial bubble. It will burst eventually. http://bit.ly/2OXZhNN 💸 Exchange News South Korea’s biggest crypto exchanges Upbit recorded , Bithumb recorded $39mn in revenue in the Q3 2018 ( > 20% less than last year). $100 million in Q3 revenue http://bit.ly/2OYNy1k is offering new users a refund of 70% of the transaction fees as a token of appreciation and good will. Korea exchange Bithumb http://bit.ly/2P16o7Y 🎌 Regulation News with malware for both Windows and macOS. North Korean hackers have infected a cryptocurrency exchange http://bit.ly/2OXrnIX . World Bank offers world’s first public blockchain bond in Australia http://bit.ly/2MwS4Hu Newly appointed chief of Japan’s top financial regulator has stated his belief that there is industry. no need for “excessive” regulation of the country’s cryptocurrency http://bit.ly/2MrAFAd Pyongyang will hold an international blockchain conference at the end of September. http://bit.ly/2P4VVsk Shanghai Securities Times said that the but that are still available in the country. China National Fintech Risk Rectification Office has so far identified 124 trading platforms with overseas IP addresses http://bit.ly/2MyHG2k Tencent’s super-app that promoted initial coin offering (ICO) and cryptocurrency trading as China continues to clean up ICO activities. | followed. WeChat has shut down many official accounts http://bit.ly/2MyaBn5 Alibaba’s Alipay hotels and all other possible venues in the district from hosting activities related to cryptocurrencies. Chaoyang District of Beijing has released an official notice to ban office buildings, http://bit.ly/2MwoMck 💼 Business News Bitpay wallet users in . Japan can turn Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash into gifts cards for Amazon http://bit.ly/2LpvP10 🌹🌹🌹 What did you guys think of our thus far? What do you want to read or learn more about on Asia? Global Coin podcast Check our past 7 weekly pieces on , , , , , , and Southeast Asia Cryptocurrency Developments A Guide to Asia Crypto funds/investors Takeaways on Asia Crypto from Techcrunch Zug Cryptokitties Binance Bitmain China’s Crypto winners Subscribe

Top Crypto News on Asia — Aug 22rd-Aug 25th

I noticed on (or should I say X) that many were wondering what happened to the Bored Ape Yacht Club and why things don’t seem so bright anymore. I am surprised that some people are surprised about it… Twitter What do they say - The higher you climb the harder you fall? At the very beginning of the NFT hype cycle - many 10k NFT PFP collections with different animals were launched. One of them back in April 2021 was the Bored Ape Yacht Club. Unlike what you may think, the collection did within minutes. In fact, it took them to do so. not sell out over a week I personally stumbled upon them accidentally. Back in those days when I was exploring the space I ended up in a Twitter Space full of ugly-looking monkey avatars (all male) speaking to each other. It felt like a very friendly place where people discussed how to contribute to their community. They spoke about creating a book club, about web3 in general, their stories of how they ended up in space, etc. Overall it was a very cozy place and I was surprised that, unlike other NFT degen spaces, no one actually spoke about alpha, the floor price, big gains, etc. Although most of them already had quite good gains seeing as by that time the BAYC floor price was already 3 (compared to the original 0.08 mint price). ETH Shortly after that Bored Ape Yacht Club would become one of the most popular NFT collections in the market that everyone was going to talk about and I would kick myself for not getting several apes back when I discovered them so I could sell them later and retire… Anyway. Let’s try to understand what happened to them with this article. Content Overview What was behind their success? More mints - more money Celebrities ANON? Not Anymore! or creating a Nazi brand?! Hot Spring 2022 NFT NYC - Summer, 2022 What did Yuga Labs do? Present Situation What was behind their success? There were different components that many argue played a role here. people thought they had missed out on a lot of NFTs that were already too expensive for an entry point (Cryptopunks, etc.) apes were affordable fair distribution - not a bonding curve (fixed mint price of 0.08 ETH) for the first time, here the holders were receiving full IP rights of their Ape utility? - the main utility was the NFT being a membership token + there was this very arguable utility for holders to draw (dicks) on the bathroom wall I may be biased - but I would argue that all the above would not matter if they had not nailed down the last point. A story that resonated with the buyers If I am not mistaken the Ape high-level story read something like this: The year is two thousand thirty everyone who aped into crypto is super-rich and extremely bored and wants to hang out with other like-minded apes. Why do I think it worked? Yeah, it’s not an amazingly well-crafted or detailed story, nothing too complex there. But as far as I remember, before them, no other project even bothered to tell a story apart from the story of “you will get rich quick”. So here at least we’ve got something. But the important thing is that in this story the people they were targeting: the degens were the heroes of the story. The story was tapping into their strong dream and desire and it made them the hero who succeeded at the end. Also using the term “aping/ape” seemed to click. More mints - more money Later on, Yuga Labs dropped 2 more collections: Bored Ape Kennel Club (airdropped to Ape holders) Mutant Ape Yacht Club in Aug 2021 These 2 drops made Yuga Labs, as well as the Bored Ape holders, richer. And now we are reaching the point where Yuga Labs and its collections grew massively! Celebrities The demand would not be so crazy and the floor prices would not skyrocket, if not for the “heavyweight shilling army” that got involved - the celebrities. Many “normies” saw a Bored Ape for the first time probably in January 2022 on the “The Tonight Show” episode from January 2022. https://youtu.be/5zi12wrh5So?t=225&embedable=true Who else was involved? Plenty of them! It was a massive marketing campaign relying on Guy Oseary connections I presume. (Guy is the founder of the management firm Maverick, whose clients include Madonna, U2, etc. who worked with Yuga Labs). All those celebrities started rocking their Apes and Mutants as PFP on their socials. As soon as they started promoting it the project became something else. The prices mooned and holding a Bored Ape became a status symbol. I would also argue that it became the turning point for the community too: it became very diverse and lost part of its vibe and unity. Essentially owning a Bored Ape became a flex. ANON? Not Anymore! Yuga Labs’ founders were anons and their identities were not public. Usually, for various reasons, that’s what many prefer in this space. But in February 2022, BuzzFeed published an revealing the identity of two of the four BAYC co-founders: Gordon Goner and Gorgamel. article The journalist and the media got a backlash from the community, as they felt doxxing people against their will was unethical and some felt that it also compromised their safety. But at least, now, people knew 2 out of 4 people responsible for making them rich… or creating a Nazi brand?! The accusations about Yuga Labs being Nazi and Racist started circulating around the end of 2021 already. https://twitter.com/Pauly0x/status/1470292926085226497?s=20&embedable=true Ryder Ripps launched a website at (getting the SEO juice) with all the concerns and details at the beginning of 2022. https://gordongoner.com/ Back then, not many seem to have paid much attention to those. There were some discussions here and there but it did not gain massive traction (spoiler it did later on… but not just yet). Hot Spring 2022 The Spring of 2022 was massive for Yuga Labs. It was packed with a few huge events that resulted in positioning the company as arguably the biggest and most powerful in the whole space. they acquired CryptoPunks and Meebits collections. On March 11, 2022, it launched the token by an entity called ApeCoin DAO. ApeCoin DAO’s council members include co-founder Alexis Ohanian, FTX’s Amy Wu, Sound Ventures’ Maaria Bajwa, Animoca’s Yat Siu and Horizen Labs’ Dean Steinbeck. On March 16, 2022 Reddit they “sold their soul to the devil” (i.e. raised a $450 million seed round from Andreessen Horowitz, Animoca Brands, LionTree, Sound Ventures, Thrive Capital, FTX, and MoonPay, etc. at a $4 billion valuation) On March 22, 2022, In they raised $320M by selling virtual land plots in its Metaverse. A plot in the Otherside Metaverse for around $5,800, plus transaction fees. May I don’t know how you feel about it, but personally, I can’t really understand why would one raise funds through VCs when they absolutely did not need to do so. Through all those mints and coin releases they already made way more than “enough” - but I guess who cares about the community and why stop at “enough”? If you can get $450M more, why not do so, right? Oh and once 2022 ended Yuga Labs’ NFT royalty income hit $100M +. Anyway, let’s see what happens to a $4B company with so many resources and celebrity endorsements + huge plans of building a game and a Metaverse… NFT NYC - Summer, 2022 Yuga Labs was the “hero” of the space at this point and the central spotlight at NFT NYC. They had organized a massive token gated Ape Party for their community with tons of celebrities and music performed by EMINEM, FUTURE, SNOOP DOGG & LCD SOUNDSYSTEM! Remember those accusations? Well… they did not get traction back then… but the bomb was dropped during the NFT NYC days… and this time it exploded! The Youtuber Philion published his video called BORED APE NAZI CLUB. https://youtu.be/XpH3O6mnZvw?embedable=true The video blew up (2M views so far) and even my “normie” friends were asking about it since they somehow stumbled upon it and watched it for the whole 1 hour… Soon enough, the whole NFT community was talking about this. The whole space was divided into 2 camps: those who believed and supported the accusations and those who dismissed them. The loudest voices among the first camp were Ryder Ripps and Pauly. And with time they got massive support and a community behind them. Those people were active on Twitter, loud, and very passionate. What did Yuga Labs do? At first, they ignored it. Then, they denied all the accusations saying those who spread the rumors were just trolls in a few interviews (honestly with so much money, I’d expect them to have a much better PR team advising the team…). Then they sued Ryder Ripps and Pauly in June 2022. I keep thinking about what would have happened if the Bored Ape community was united and loyal. If they stood up for the brand and fought for it as passionately as the accusers… Would Yuga Labs still feel the need to go to court? Well, we won’t know, since it did not happen. By the way… did I tell you what were they being sued for? The logical answer would be defamation, right? I mean, so many horrible things were told about the brand, their intentions, etc…? But no - the court document states that it’s about something else… Below is a quote from the document: In response to the Bored Ape Yacht Club’s popularity, Defendant Ryder Ripps, a self-proclaimed “conceptual artist,” recently began trolling Yuga Labs and scamming consumers into purchasing RR/BAYC NFTs by misusing Yuga Labs’ trademarks. He seeks to devalue the Bored Ape NFTs by flooding the NFT market with his own copycat NFT collection using the original Bored Ape Yacht Club images and calling his NFTs “RR/BAYC” NFTs. Brazenly, he promotes and sells these RR/BAYC NFTs using the very same trademarks that Yuga Labs uses to promote and sell authentic Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs. He also markets these copycat NFTs as falsely equivalent to an authentic Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT. He then goes on to use Yuga Labs’ marks to promote his coming “Ape Market” NFT marketplace, which requires a person to purchase one of his infringing NFTs to join the Ape Market. This is no mere monkey business. It is a deliberate effort to harm Yuga Labs at the expense of consumers by sowing confusion about whether these RR/BAYC NFTs are in some way sponsored, affiliated, or connected to Yuga Labs’ official Bored Ape Yacht Club, in violation of the Lanham Act and related state law. I think the whole story of RR/BAYC deserves a whole separate article, so I won’t go into that and let you do the research if you’d like. I’ll probably visit the topic at some point in another article - but not in this story. Present Situation Now, let’s see where we are: Yuga Labs did release a game after all… Below is the trailer (I will leave it to your judgment) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CJsAej_GWc&embedable=true Although, some . claim it’s an exact copy of another game Remember all those celebrities? Most of them are no longer using their Bored Apes or Mutants as PFPs. CNN spoke to several former MoonPay (the concierge service helping celebrities buy their Apes) employees who said they were skeptical the celebrities paid for their NFTs, because there was no evidence on the blockchain. Even more: the MoonPay and the celebrities have been sued Looks like coin is at ATL (all-time low) now Ape The floor price of NFTs keeps dropping (to be fair though almost all collections have suffered from the bear market). The SEC is investigating Yuga Labs for securities violations Ape Fest this year will be in Hong Kong During the past year, Yuga Labs executive team has gone through massive changes and many have left the project What’s Next? Only time will tell what happens to Yuga Labs in the future. Many went too far to claim that if Bored Apes fail then the whole NFT space dies… I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Also published here.

The Bored Ape Yacht Club Saga: Triumphs, Trials, and Tragedies

দ্য বোরড এপ ইয়ট ক্লাব সাগা: জয়, ট্রায়াল এবং ট্র্যাজেডি

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The Bored Apes Yacht Club Saga: triunfos, pruebas y tragedias

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ऊबे हुए वानर यॉट क्लब सागा: विजय, परीक्षण और त्रासदी

The Bored Apes Yacht Club Saga: 勝利、試練、そして悲劇

Bored Ape Yacht Club Saga: 승리, 시련, 비극

The Bored Apes Yacht Club Saga: triunfos, provações e tragédias

Bored Ape Yat Kulübü Efsanesi: Zaferler, Denemeler ve Trajediler

The Bored Apes Yacht Club Saga: Chiến thắng, Thử thách và Bi kịch

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Photo Credit, inputting " pixelated green clock on a laptop screen in san francisco " via DALL-E . by richard-kubina, Guy, David, Limarc and Sheharyar Khan occurred in hackernoon's official #random channel. It is about the first couple hundred images we generated with . This Slogging thread DALL-E richard-kubina Jul 23, 2022, 5:44 PM I've got access to Dall-e :excited: Guy Jul 23, 2022, 7:42 PM Bruh where’s my beta key?!?! David Jul 24, 2022, 3:52 AM Those featured images - gonna be dope! richard-kubina Jul 24, 2022, 11:10 PM https://dallery.gallery/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/The-DALL%C2%B7E-2-prompt-book-v1.01.pdf Guy Jul 28, 2022, 12:48 AM :party_parrot: David Jul 28, 2022, 5:38 AM So for image creation, is it groundbreaking technology or not? Guy Jul 28, 2022, 12:07 PM From what I’ve messed around with it’s pretty good! $15 for 115 image generations so not tooo pricey either! Seems to be a bit more consistent than GPT3 too Guy Jul 28, 2022, 1:55 PM Revolutionary! 0.13$ per image range David Jul 29, 2022, 4:56 AM Ten more tools https://twitter.com/guyp/status/1552681939806691329?s=21&t=ZXF6oS2oh8QvmAIJdXrvJw David Jul 29, 2022, 4:57 AM DALL E has impressive floor. Almost every image feels a little like a human made it David Aug 30, 2022, 7:07 PM David Aug 30, 2022, 8:54 PM David Aug 30, 2022, 8:55 PM David Aug 30, 2022, 8:55 PM David Aug 30, 2022, 8:56 PM David Aug 30, 2022, 8:56 PM David Aug 30, 2022, 8:56 PM David Aug 30, 2022, 8:57 PM David Aug 30, 2022, 8:57 PM David Aug 30, 2022, 8:57 PM David Aug 30, 2022, 8:57 PM David Aug 30, 2022, 8:58 PM David Aug 30, 2022, 8:58 PM David Aug 30, 2022, 8:59 PM David Aug 30, 2022, 8:59 PM David Aug 30, 2022, 8:59 PM David Aug 30, 2022, 9:01 PM Limarc Aug 31, 2022, 4:45 AM This looks like a lot of fun Sheharyar Khan Aug 31, 2022, 3:38 PM Since Dall.E couldn't generate an accurate picture of you David, here's Turnstile vocalist Brendan Yates, who I think comes . https://www.google.com/search?q=Brendan+Yates&client=firefox-b-d&sxsrf=ALiCzsZ3aQ77IocJY8gao_CR-srnKGXNFQ:1661960185620&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj0gfqTtPH5AhXJ8bsIHWi1DHQQ_AUoAXoECAIQAw&biw=1920&bih=927&dpr=1#imgrc=yf1ABBCoDMyUnM David Aug 31, 2022, 5:31 PM Sheharyar Khan Ha! That's a new one. Last 'celebrity' lookalike someone called me was https://www.google.com/search?q=Milo%C5%A1+Teodosi%C4%87&newwindow=1&client=firefox-b-d&hl=en&sxsrf=ALiCzsa-WuCP_p8ISXM36EguvClgWWhoyw:1661967043844&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwii-5razfH5AhWOAjQIHU11ApkQ_AUoAnoECAIQBA&biw=1364&bih=790&dpr=1.8 David Aug 31, 2022, 5:33 PM Limarc it is fun. can try it out here https://labs.openai.com/waitlist David Aug 31, 2022, 5:45 PM David Aug 31, 2022, 5:51 PM David Aug 31, 2022, 5:52 PM David Aug 31, 2022, 5:56 PM David Aug 31, 2022, 6:04 PM David Aug 31, 2022, 6:13 PM David Aug 31, 2022, 6:16 PM David Aug 31, 2022, 6:49 PM David Aug 31, 2022, 7:09 PM Limarc Aug 31, 2022, 7:26 PM Oh that's interesting they don't want you to use it to create deep fakes of famous people richard-kubina Aug 31, 2022, 7:34 PM yeah, I've seen folks using stable diffusion to do that though https://www.reddit.com/r/MediaSynthesis/comments/x2j01s/modern_celebrities_alternate_timelines/ David Aug 31, 2022, 9:20 PM David Aug 31, 2022, 9:47 PM David Aug 31, 2022, 10:58 PM David Aug 31, 2022, 11:00 PM David Aug 31, 2022, 11:01 PM David Aug 31, 2022, 11:03 PM This one has credible Adult Swim vibes for a show called something like "Suzette & Steed" David Aug 31, 2022, 11:04 PM Sidenote: Who owns this image? Me or . My words. Their tech. On the free trial plan... http://OpenAi.com David Aug 31, 2022, 11:08 PM David Aug 31, 2022, 11:09 PM David Aug 31, 2022, 11:18 PM David Aug 31, 2022, 11:19 PM David Aug 31, 2022, 11:21 PM David Aug 31, 2022, 11:22 PM David Aug 31, 2022, 11:24 PM David Aug 31, 2022, 11:25 PM Ok got to my first viable turn company logo into featured image art about company moment David Aug 31, 2022, 11:27 PM I can't seem to find the right way to tell the DALL-E it's noon time! David Aug 31, 2022, 11:29 PM David Aug 31, 2022, 11:30 PM David Sep 1, 2022, 3:00 AM David Sep 1, 2022, 3:04 AM David Sep 1, 2022, 3:04 AM

Is DALL-E Groundbreaking Technology or Not? Costs ≈0.13$ Per Image and More DALL-E 2 Access Details

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