💣 AI - FTX Creditors' Saving Grace

A weekly recap of the largest crypto events and narratives, with an extra dose of insight.

Here’s what we have for you:

• SBF’s trial

• GambleFi is back

• Sugartown and Pudgy Penguins

• Vertex LBA delayed

• Rollbit buyback & burn go brrr

GM wherever you are. As you’re reading this, the SBF trial is likely going on, as we eagerly await the jury’s decision. Personally, I hope the guy rots in jail for all the pain he caused crypto as a whole, but also to all those who had funds on FTX. However, not all hope is lost for FTX creditors. In April 2022, FTX wrote a $500M check to an AI company, Anthropic. Now, the same company is raising a new round that could potentially value FTX’s stake at a few billion. This isn’t enough to completely cover the now bankrupt exchange’s liabilities, but certainly helps in doing so.

In other news, friend.tech has seen its TVL drop 14% from $52M to $45M in the past week. Could it be that the party is finally over? Or perhaps could it be due to more forks launching on other blockchains, such as Stars Arena which recently launched on Avalanche.

The market has been relatively quiet lately. Nothing is pumping, but also nothing is falling. It kinda just feels like a state of limbo as we await some other catalyst or the start of a full blown bull run. But in the meantime, there are gems here and there. That’s why we write this newsletter right?

To close off, as you’re reading this newsletter, chances are Arbitrum’s short term incentive program votes will be ongoing. So keep an eye out on how those are going, and be prepared for a flurry of backroom lobbying, back and forth voting, and people getting angry on CT as there will be some protocols who do not get what they asked for and walk away with nothing.

-RektRadar

GambleFi is so back

Never fade human degeneracy. That’s something that I’ve realised over the years. Humans inherently like to gamble, it feeds our dopamine receptors like nothing else. There’s a reason why crypto speculation is like normal speculation on steroids.

New into town and without a token yet is Shuffle.com. The website features slots, live casinos, blackjack, and other games for one to lose money on. The platform has shown impressive month-on-month growth, starting the year with sub 1,000 users depositing but now almost reaching 8,000 users. Similarly, wagered volume on the platform has exploded vertically, no thanks to the $SHFL token that the platform announced on August 22nd. Permissionless gambling remains one of crypto’s largest use cases. Who knows how much wagered volume the platform will see next month.

On a similar note, Rollbit has recently announced that $RLB buy & burns are entirely onchain. Each buy onchain can be verified with an associated ETH transaction. Can’t fake that even if you wanted to. On Monday, the platform burned a whopping 1.2% of the circulating supply as part of the buy & burn program, and if this continues, then we are certainly in for some fireworks. The platform generated nearly $38M in revenue in September, which resulted in $5M $RLB repurchased.

Honestly, GambleFi will continue to explore, and we’ll probably see a 100x in the market size from here on out.

Sugartown - remember those facebook games?

• Remember Zynga, the developer of all those games you played on Facebook 15 years ago? Yea, they’re back. This time with a crypto native game called Sugartown.

• To access the game, one needs to buy a token called Oras, or more specifically NFTs. So far, the collection has generated $5M in trading volume with a floor price around $400. If you still believe in Zynga’s ability to deliver great games, then perhaps you might want to pick a few of these up.

Vertex LBA is delayed

• Vertex has decided to delay its LBA & TGE to November. The final epoch of the initial token phase will still proceed as planned. However, there’ll be a new epoch of the ongoing incentives phase that will have tokens unlocked for the LBA and TGE.

• What does this mean? Well I’m not sure. But I’m assuming that the team is figuring out some details, and hopefully those details include more number go up technology, so stay tuned.

Pudgy Penguins x Walmart

• Another NFT story for ya. It’s not every day you get to see a crypto-native IP brand emerge in the real world. The one who wins this first accolade is Pudgy Penguins.
  

• Last week, Walmart announced that it would sell Pudgy Penguin toys across its 2,000 locations. Following that, trading volume increased 241% week on week. If you think real world toy purchases have an impact on NFT prices, then it could be something else to pick up for your NFT collection too.

1. Try out Pirex ETH on its testnet.

2. New FOREX pairs on Gains if that’s your thing.

3. Pay attention to Arbitrum short term incentive program votes. Here’s the voting page.

4. Try out Hyperliquid as the next big perps thing.

5. Be sure to vote on LBR governance if you are a LBR token holder.

Rollbit, digging into the numbers

Rollbit is one of the hottest GambleFi projects out there. Amidst all the bull posting the buybacks, how is it really doing from a user activity perspective?

For starters, USDT deposits have been continuously increasing. That line has been up and to the right since the start.

Similarly, if we take a look at daily deposits, they’re pretty volatile but it’s still holding up well. A similar story holds up for its USDC and ETH deposits.

Similarly, one can see that Rollbit’s buy and burn program is working well. On average, $200K of $RLB has been burnt every day, with the total amount of $RLB burnt reaching a staggering $12M. There’s probably less than $10M in $RLB liquidity onchain in total at current prices if you want a point of comparison.

All signs point towards $RLB continuing its protocol growth, and the token price likely outperforming in the long term.

Aurelius, an integrated lending protocol on Mantle.

Synthetix perps launching soon in telegram

Possible trade on Canto with NOTE

New Unibot gas modes for those ultra degens

Radiant capital mainnet delayed to October 15th

Pirex ETH is live on testnet

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