Ticketing On The Blockchain

Cryptocurrencies have shown broad resilience since Powell’s hawkish comments last Friday.

In fact, Bitcoin BTC/USD, Ethereum ETH/USD, and the rest of the gang have collectively outperformed equities over the past week.

Bitcoin is also showing signs of maturity as intraday price swings have compressed, suggesting a possible floor in sight.

Finally, Meta META is trying to win back a seat at the cool kid’s table.

The social media giant is rolling out digital collectibles to showcase NFTs on Facebook and Instagram.

Having said that…let’s get to it!

1. Ticketing on the blockchain

2. Institutions have a BTFD mindset

3. Former founders raise fresh funds

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1. Ticketing on the blockchain

Every year, Ticketmaster sells ~500 million tickets to concerts, games, and events which generate multiple billions of dollars in revenue.

Over the last 6 months, they’ve been quietly running a pilot program that has seen 5 million Ticketmaster tickets minted as NFTs with the help of Dapper Labs.

This week, the company announced that Dapper Labs’ Flow will be the exclusive blockchain on which it mints future NFTs—which function primarily as digital memorabilia but also shareable proof of attendance—for select events.

The move lays the groundwork for the possibility of all tickets eventually becoming NFTs, though that is something that has not yet been decided.

“The data will ultimately show that, the user behavior will ultimately show that”

– Dapper Labs

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2. Institutions have a BTFD mindset

While we’ll never know exactly who coined the phrase “buy the f*cking dip”, we all know which group of investors are most likely to hold it as a mantra.

Yet, as we approached the Merge, it’s been institutions using the BTFD mentality for Ethereum as opposed to retail investors.

Trading desks across crypto firms have been reporting heavier-than-usual interest from large funds, which recently accounted for 62% of buyers at trading firm B2C2.

That number is typically around 50%.

Retail, on the other hand, has blinked.

BlockFi reports its customers have been net sellers since even before Powell’s speech a week ago.

It won’t take long to find out which camp is right—the launch date for the Merge is next Tuesday, September 6.

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3. Former founders raise fresh funds

In another sign of institutional bullishness for the crypto space, two former founders have raised a combined $227 million for their new respective crypto funds.

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian’s VC firm Seven Seven Six, which has been managing $750 million across 3 funds since 2020, just launched its first crypto-focused fund, Kryptos.

The new fund’s mindset and plan for the freshly raised $177 million can be summarized by founding parent Holloway:

“It’s on sale. Everything is on sale.”

Meanwhile, Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal just raised $50 million for his new fund, Symbolic Capital.

The web3 fund will invest in early-stage companies and consumer-facing decentralized apps, while also offering advisory, recruiting, PR, marketing, and auditing services to its portfolio companies.

I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times, I’ll say it again: builders build!