Coinbase Comes for the Masses
Coinbase Comes for the Masses
With Coinbase's blockbuster "Wallet-as-a-Service" launch, onboarding is about to get a whole lot easier. But will it come at a cost?
TylerD's Market Summary
GM!
Today's top headlines include:
Coinbase launching WaaS
Gitcoin mania and its drivers
Yuga's 2nd Trip details
VeeCon tickets airdropped along with XCOPY rumors
Silvergate winds down operations, crypto falls
🔵 Coinbase Launches Wallet-as-a-Service
The Coinbase team saw all the hype that ERC-4337 generated coming out of ETH Denver and said "Hold my beer."
Yesterday they launched a major new product in their "Wallet-as-a-Service" solution.
And they have quite the lofty goal with this launch. From the release statement:
"Coinbase will enable companies around the world to help bring the next hundred million consumers into web3 through a seamless wallet-onboarding experience."
So what is it?
Wallet-as-a-Service (WaaS) is a set of wallet infrastructure APIs that allow companies to create onchain wallets, with customizable features, for their customers.
The solution is primarily meant to solve the issue around individual wallet set up and management - one of the widely accepted biggest hurdles to onboarding.
What Are the Details?
From the Coinbase team, the primary benefits of their WaaS model include:
Better user experience via hosted wallets with username+password onboarding (No need for seed phrases)
Enhanced security via multi-party computation (MPC) which effectively keeps user assets divided with keys distributed across multiple parties
Option for full user control via private key export
Native wallet integration for businesses so users never need to leave the platform
And they have already lined up some big name companies building on WaaS, with Floor, Moonray, thirdweb (just partnered with Spotify) and Tokenproof.
Enter Fonz, the founder of Tokenproof.
"Individuals will no longer have to come with knowledge of how the blockchain works in order to interact with the brands they love. When users download the tokenproof app, we’ll help welcome them into web3 by creating their first wallet, which will be powered by Coinbase."
With ERC-4337 and now WaaS, ease of onboarding is clearly a focus area for 2023, and it appears we are set up for some major improvements and progress.
One major trend to watch, though - the shift to centralization over decentralization.
Several of the major benefits to ease of onboarding come at a cost of 3rd party control.
And in several instances, that is perfectly fine. Not every aspect of crypto or NFTs needs to be fully decentralized.
But let's not fully lose the plot.
📈📉📈 Gitcoin Mania
Yesterday's price action on "Gitcoin Presents" was some of the wildest I have seen in 2+ years in NFTs.
This was an open edition available for days at 0.05 ETH, the mint window closed, and then within just 2-3 hours the floor had rocketed 1400% to 0.7 ETH.
But what goes up, must (or usually) comes down, and this one fell hard, fast.
After peaking at 0.7 ETH it crashed all the way back to 0.2 ETH by 10 pm ET, meaning a 70% loss for any top buyers.
Then it grinded back up overnight and currently sits at 0.47 ETH, a solid 950% gain for minters who held.
What Drove This Crazy Action?
For background, Gitcoin Presents was an open edition mint at 0.05 ETH, open for several days and closing yesterday at 12 pm ET.
The NFT was the first curated drop in a new series from Metalabel called "Quality Drops," and the specific NFT was effectively an eBook with "The Quadratic Funding" collection of papers from several authors including Vitalik.
As for the price action, there were 3 major drivers:
1) NFT degens heard "Vitalik" and raced to hit the buy button.
That was a huge driver of the initial FOMO-induced buys.
2) Blur farming was another big factor, as once this caught relevancy farmers raced in.
The set saw over 7,000 ETH volume in less than 24 hours.
Crazy stat - top Blur farmer Machi Big Brother now holds 1,336 of these (14.5% of the supply). So he personally was a huge driver of volume.
3) And last, a bet on the Metalabel team. This group includes the co-founder of Kickstarter, Yancey Strickler, along with leaders and devs from etsy and eBay.
For those looking to dive deeper, I recommend this thread from Harvey Vogelmann.
So is this the next blue chip, the next Owls, or in between?
Too soon to tell, but it likely depends what the Metalabel team has up their sleeves (cuz we know Vitalik ain't tweeting about this thing).
🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?
Here is the list of the other major headlines from a busy Wednesday in NFTs:
Trading volume was back near 40k ETH, though most NFTs were slightly red as traders sold off to chase Gitcoin
Yuga announced early details for The Otherside 2nd Trip scheduled for March 25; it will be led by 4 Team Captains, will include access for guests, an expanded playable region and an official livestream
Azuki announced its new Museum of Dope Art (MODA) inside their Hilumia metaverse, feauring art from community members
VeeFriends holders were airdropped ticket NFTs for this year's VeeCon in Indianapolis (my hometown), with speculation of XCOPY as the artist behind the tickets
Gabe Leydon teased that Dragon Esssence claims will begin this week
Sappy Seals announced a new roadmap called "The Grand Plan"
Foundation is joining the open edition meta with their "Replica" release which will include 35 artists launching 24-hour open editions
Decentraland announced the launch of the public SDK 7 Beta, with a focus on usability, performance, and portability.
Cryptoon Goonz are launching another apparel drop, blending digital and physical
🌎 Around Crypto and Web3
A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:
The crypto market was down again yesterday driven by several bad headlines; BTC -1.8% at $21,700, ETH -1.5% at $1,530
Silvergate announced that it will voluntarily liquidate its crypto assets and wind down operations of its holding company
Mirror announced the introduction of "Subscribe to Mint," as a new way for creators to engage with their collectors.
🚀 NFT Total Volume
Gitcoin Presents (7,005 ETH, 0.44 ETH Floor)
Wrapped CryptoPunks (2,914 ETH, 65.1 ETH)
MAYC (2,662 ETH, 15.3 ETH)
Azuki (2,376 ETH, 14.6 ETH)
Otherdeed (2,055 ETH, 1.92 ETH)
📈 NFT Floor Price Increase
Gitcoin Presents (880%, 0.44 ETH Floor)
OnChainMonkey (27%, 3.03 ETH)
LoudPunx (23%, 1.65 ETH)
Braindrops (14%, 0.38 ETH)
Otheerdeed (4%, 1.92 ETH)
🗓 Upcoming NFT Mints and Reveals
Today has fewer drops but some big ones.
The Starbucks Odyssey drop is likely the biggest of the day, with their "first ever" limited edition stamps being available for those in the beta program. Given that it's gated, most will only have a chance on secondary, which could drive some serious volume.
OSF will definitely see some attention on Rekt Cities 2, though 3 of the 5 editions can only be minted by burning Rekt Cities 1.
And Lucrece's DefyBirds are today's wildcard, as the Proceed w/ Caution artist has started seeing more increased demand as of late (and Moonbirds holders are hungry for an airdrop).
Garden Point by Kometh (11:00 a.m. ET); 0.01 ETH mint
Starbucks Odyssey (3:00 p.m. ET); 0.057 ETH mint
Rekt Cities 2 by OSF (6:30 p.m. ET); raffle/auction
Lucrece DefyBirds (TBD)
Enjoy this write-up? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email tyler.warner@luckytrader.com.
For all volume and floor price data, see Lucky Trader's Project Rankings page.
For all upcoming mints, see Lucky Trader's Project Schedule page.