Vitalik Wants To Live Forever 🪞📈🖼️

Vitalik Wants To Live Forever 🪞📈🖼️ Valko

Top News

• 🪞 Vitalik reflects, 'it’s time for the next-gen to take up the mantle'

• 📈 On-chain prediction markets hit ATH of $50M monthly volume

• 🖼️ 3AC’s NFTs sell at Sotheby’s, some for as high as 85 ETH

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Specs’ Insights

Vitalik Buterin reflects on his role, says 'time for the next generation to take up the mantle'

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, reflecting on his crypto journey, said it is time to support a new generation of crypto developers.

⌐◪-◪ → A new Vitalik just dropped! That’s 2x back-to-back blog posts, the kid’s on a roll.

While yesterday’s post was focused on Crypto + AI use cases, today’s post was more reflective — looking back at the years.

Specifically, Vitalik unpacks the evolution of his role in crypto, acknowledging the emergence of younger talents and his shifting interest from crypto to longevity research.

It almost sounds like this is the beginning of his final act in crypto before he transitions to the field of longevity research and development.

Maybe Vitalik and billionaire Bryan Johnson, who said “crypto and longevity are best friends” will become best friends.

Let me know in Specs Chat!

January was the first $50M+ volume month for on-chain prediction markets

⌐◪-◪ → Polymarket is absolutely crushing it, driving prediction market monthly volumes to an all-time high of $50M.

At this point, prediction markets are more reliable than the news, with market movers like Bill Ackman and Donald Trump starting to reference Polymarket and Kalshi.

I reckon this growth will sustain itself through the election cycle, and possibly thereafter, making 2024 the year prediction markets go mainstream.

The top 20 traders on Polymarket have generated over $5M in earnings, averaging $220k each. This is more than enough profit motive to drive new users, which we’re already seeing with an uptick in Google searches for “prediction market”.

I don’t know about you, but I have a strange urge to create a prediction market for next month’s prediction market volume, lol.

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Top sales from the Sotheby's Starry Night auction

⌐◪-◪ → Sotheby’s Starry Night auction just came to a close, featuring NFTs from the infamous Three Arrows Capital (3AC).

The collection showcased over 300 pieces from some of the NFT space’s most celebrated artists like Alpha Century Kid, Beeple, Grant Yun, and more.

The auction drove over $1M in total sales with 490 bids from 96 bidders around the world. Not bad!

The best part is the seller and auction house weren’t the only ones to make money, all artist royalties were honored.

Check out the full collection here and let me know what your favorite piece is in Specs Chat. My favorite piece is “Bedtime” by Grant Yun.

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Everything Else

⛓️ Crypto & DeFi

• Ether options trading volume hits all-time high

• Ethereum 'Dencun' upgrade goes live on 2nd testnet, Sepolia

• Jack Dorsey’s Block Inc. begins laying off 10% of staff

• Solana monthly transaction volume hits multi-year high

• ZetaChain to go live on mainnet within days

• Layer N hit 120k transactions/second in closed tests

• Former Solana Labs employees form 'Anza' developer shop

• $675M recovered from $2.6B stolen in 2023, says PeckShield

• Crypto payments firm Transak joins Visa Direct

• Circle to launch USDC on Celo network

🏦 Wallstreet & VC

• SEC likely to approve ETH ETF on May 23 says Standard Chartered

• Uncorrelated Ventures raises $315M crypto fund

• Crypto startups saw $180M funding last week across 31 companies

🏛️ Legal & Regulatory

• Terraform Labs bankruptcy helped afford appeal in SEC fraud case

• CBOE says Global X’s withdrew their spot BTC ETF application

• US residents lose access to Kucoin tomorrow Feb 1st

🌎 Rest of the World

• Binance reviews its majority stake in South Korean GOPAX exchange

• Thailand’s SEC breaks ground with crypto-friendly rules

• Former UK Chancellor George Osborne joins Coinbase as adviser

🖼️ NFTs & Metaverse

• GameStop bails on NFTS, 'GameStop' meme coin surges

• Taproot Wizards delays 'Quantum Cats' sale for 2nd time

• NFT sales fell 36% in January to $1.2B

• Pixelmon and Playember announce gaming partnership

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