🤠 Web3 Weekly Round-up #9

Hey there, I’m Luca - lifelong startup nerd, crypto fanatic since 2016, and now keeping up with trends across Web3 is my second full-time job.

Here’s everything you need to know about the last week in Web3 - in 5 tweets 🐦

🧟‍♂️ #1 - The rise of Kevin

If you haven't already, you need to meet Kevin, Web3's new best bud and favorite meme!

Kevin was in the first batch of character NFTs revealed by the Pixelmon team. This is the same Pixelmon that I mentioned in edition #5 for raising $70M and being the most hyped NFT game yet. The zombie character named "Kevin" instantly drew attention for being so hilariously bad that he was almost... endearing?

Within a day of the reveal, Kevin memes took Web3 Twitter and Discords by storm. It was only a matter of hours before Kevin derivate projects started popping up like Kevin Punks, Kevin Mfers, and my personal favorite, Lives of Kevin. The night after the Pixelmon reveal, Kevin derivative projects took the top 4 spots for the most trending projects. Some of the projects saw 10x pumps or more, but only for a short period of time. Now, Kevin is one of the most valuable Pixelmon species despite being far from the rarest.

🏦 #2 - Tax season is upon us

The most dreaded time of the year for crypto investors is tax season. For a good chunk of Americans, tax season consists of a few minutes on TurboTax and they're done. Crypto makes taxes a little tougher for a couple reasons:

• Platforms like TurboTax aren't well-suited for crypto information, and most accountants aren't familiar with paying taxes on crypto

• Most crypto investors use a plethora of platforms and exchanges for their investments, so there's no single source of truth for tax data (I.e., there's no single tax form to download like you would from Robinhood)

• NFTs make taxes even more complicated because purchasing an NFT is a taxable event on your Ethereum, and selling an NFT is a taxable event on the NFT

Luckily, a few platforms have popped up to help investors aggregate their crypto transactions, and some Web3 influencers are leading the charge by writing helpful articles and threads, like this one! This is all going on while rumors swirl of Biden's upcoming executive order to further regulate crypto.

⚠️ #3 - Defi founders stepping down

Andre and Anton are some of the most well-known and respected developers in DeFi (Decentralized Finance). Andre is widely regarded as the "Godfather of DeFi," and both have contributed immensely to major projects like Yearn Finance, a popular yield farming platform, and Fantom, a blockchain similar to Ethereum but cheaper and faster.

News of Andre and Anton's departure from DeFi and crypto more broadly came as a big shock to the Web3 community. As a result, Yearn and Fantom tokens have dipped by 8% and 14%, respectively. On the bright side, neither of these major projects is shutting down. Both have hundreds of contributors and were developed through immutable blockchain smart contracts. Even if the founders wanted to delete the protocols, they wouldn't be able to!

💰 #4 - Scam of a different flavor

Most Web3 scams involve some form of tricking, misleading, or manipulating a target, but this is a different case altogether. Tai Lopez is one of the original get-rich-quick internet gurus who rose to notoriety through his Here in my garage YouTube ad that's been memed into oblivion since 2015. While not a scammer in the traditional sense, Tai's trademarks include showing off his wealth, "reading" multiple books a day, and selling masterclasses for thousands of dollars (or more) to viewers.

Most recently, Tai has hopped on the NFT bandwagon to profit off of all the money coming into the space. He's selling NFTs across three tiers with benefits like access to his courses and 1-on-1 experiences with him, which are selling for over $100k in some cases. Some people are further meme-ing the situation, but others have called out Tai for making another obvious cash grab, as identified in the smart contract code for his collection.

💸 #5 - Legendary stablecoin yields

With every passing week of crypto assets declining on the whole, it looks increasingly likely that we're in a bear cycle of the market. While a lot of investors are excited about "buying the dip" to get into ETH, BTC, and bluechip NFTs at a bargain price, this time period also gives other parts of crypto the space to shine. Most notably, many investors have moved their capital into stablecoins in order to maintain a stable value.

However, crypto investors will always look for above-average returns, even if it's not through their usual assets. There are numerous stablecoin protocols offering ~20% annual returns that have seen a significant influx of new capital. Most of these protocols generate returns through lending and borrowing. While this level of returns isn't sustainable in the long run, investors are betting that they'll hold until the next bull run.

🎉 If you learned something new, forward this to a few friends! It goes a long way for me, your crypto-curious friends, and the growth of the Web3 community :)

💬 What did you find most intriguing this week? Let me know by replying to the email or tweeting at me - any and all feedback is welcome!