😭 META says NO to NFTs but YES to...

Gm, this is the doodhwala, the only crypto newsletter that won’t hate you if you use a Draw 4 on us during a game of Uno.

That’s okay. I’m fine 🙃

Here’s what we gots for you today:

• 🔍 META changes the NFT focus

• 😱 Biggest DeFi Hack of 2023

• 💰 $15 for 1 transaction?!

• 🛠 How to Study Crypto

• 🤣 Milky Meme of the Day

When you have 1 card but you get a DRAW 4:

🔍 META changes the NFT focus

It’s January 1, 2023.

You set yourself a new year’s ambition.

How long will it take for you to give up on it?

META, the company behind the 3 largest social media platforms, took less than 3 months.

That’s right! Zuck is just like us, giving up before getting started.

META gave up and dropped 2 bombshell announcements:

1. NFTs on Facebook and Instagram are OUT

2. META is firing 10k people + cancelling 5k listings

Wait, hold the 📞 Facebook and Instagram had NFTs?!?

Yup, it wasn’t as hyped up as some of META’s other launches like:

• Reels: That thing it copied from TikTok

• Candid Stories: That thing it copied from BeReal

• Stories: That thing it copied from Snapchat

• Filters: That other thing it copied from Snapchat

Zuck is so unoriginal, you can call him…the doodhwala 😭 😭 😭

Less than a year ago, META teased NFTs first as “digital collectibles” then they went FULL ON degen allowing creators to mint and sell their NFTs.

Then it all went downhill 🎢

And it happened because of 3 reasons:

1️⃣ Timing

While the exact – launch – wasn’t that great, what was worse was META’s unlucky and hilarious timing.

The timing is worse than when I decided to start traveling more in March 2020. 🥲

📅 May 2022

• Instagram launches digital collectibles

• Terra Luna blows up – crypto crashes

📅 August 2022

• META integrates Ethereum and Polygon

• Lending companies blow up – crypto crashes again

📅 November 2022

• META allows creators to mint + sell NFTs

• FTX blows up – crypto crashes again

🤣

It looks like the NFT gods were really really not on META’s side. They probably had their data leaked by Facebook in 2016. 😲

2️⃣ Execution

META’s execution was…MEH to say the least.

Instagram started by onboarding a handful of creators like:

📸 photographers and videographers💻 graphic digital artists🎵 musicians

Meta was all about one thing – supporting creators – using NFTs as a medium.

But the problem was the infrastructure for this.

They needed:

• Public blockchains like Ethereum and Polygon

• Storage solutions like Arweave

• Wallets like Metamask

And Zuck ain’t about the dependency life. 👎

That’s why it wasn’t even pushed internally within Instagram or Facebook.

Seriously, when’s the last time you saw any mention of NFTs either by Instagram or Facebook or a creator?

In the end, few creators used NFTs. 🫤

META also wanted to use NFTs as a way to earn 💰

There were rumors that META would charge ~48% fees on the sale of NFTs on its platform. This was…uhh…not well received by the NFT community.

Since then, they’ve shifted focus on generating revenue from other things to – Reels. Yes those videos you send to your friends but they never open and respond 😢

Because of this ☝️ No use + No money, META stopped talking about NFTs 🤐

In their Q4 earnings call last month, META mentioned “NFTs”, “collectibles,” “blockchain,” or “Ethereum” exactly 0 times.

3️⃣ Focus

What was mentioned:

• 28 times → was “AI,” and

• 7 times → was “metaverse”

Yup! META did what every influencer did in 2023 – shifted from NFTs and Web3 to AI.

Q. Where are they gonna use AI?A. AI discovery engine to recommend more content on Facebook and Instagram.

So that you go from spending 2 hours a day on Reels to 20. 🤣

The way Zuck framed this last month:

Interpretation:

We’re gonna ride this AI wave because it’s hot, but the metaverse will be the main goal. I mean we changed our name to META. So, I guess we kinda have to. 😭

The way WE THINK Zuck and META are looking at the Metaverse right now is:

AR + VR → Build the technology for the Metaverse → Which is where everyone will live and exchange → NFTs

TLDR = AR 🤝 Metaverse 🤝 NFTs

Doodhwala’s take:

We’ll be honest – we like Zuck and his plans for META. 👌

He’s always been a guy who builds products YEARS into the future. And he’s a fellow copy-cat 🐱!

That’s why he bought Instagram for $1 billion + WhatsApp for $19 billion. Now, these 2 are in the top-3 social media companies in the world.

The Metaverse is still META’s future. NFTs will be this Metaverse’s commodities.

Because of this goal☝️ and a case of BAD timing + BAD execution + BAD focus – NFTs on Instagram didn’t make it.

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😱 Biggest DeFi Hack of 2023

Man…we’re not liking this March Madness at all.

No, we’re not talking about the popular American basketball tournament. 😅

This is Crypto March Madness. 😭

First, it was USDC losing its peg and causing mass panic attacks.

Now, it’s a $200 MILLION DeFi hack. (Lord, have mercy! 😢)

So what’s going on? 🧐

Euler Finance, a DeFi platform for lending and borrowing that you probably never knew existed, suffered an attack on Monday.

Yup. During peak USDC chaos.

And in terms of what exactly was stolen, it was A LOT:

• $DAI- $8.7 million

• $WBTC- $18.5 million

• $USDC- $33.9 million

• $stETH- $140 million 🤯

Looks like the hacker will be pumped during the ETH Shanghai upgrade when stETH can be finally unlocked to collect rewards. 😬

The Total Value Locked (TVL) on Euler Finance went from:

$311 million → $10.3 million ☹️

How exactly did this happen?

While the on-chain detectives are still uncovering this, one narrative came out on top—

🔴 FLASH LOAN attack. 🔴

What’s a Flash Loan? 🧐

Is this how Nirav Modi and Vijay Mallya got those big loans so quickly from our Indian banks? 🙃

Nope. That’s something else. (We can’t talk about that 🤐)

The attacker used a series of flash loans and multiple wallet addresses to exploit the platform.

Our friends at Solidity Scan wrote a great thread tracing the attacker's steps 👇

With around $200 million being stolen, this makes it the BIGGEST hack of 2023 so far…

Unfortunately, the problems didn’t stop there. ⛔️

The ripple effects from this hack seem to have hit other DeFi protocols as well because of connected liquidity pools.

Most of these funds are either frozen or lost. 😬

• Balancer → $11.9 million was sent to Euler during the attack which cannot be recovered

• Angle Protocol → lost over $17 million worth of USDC

• Idle Finance → lost around $5.9 million

• Yearn Finance → lost ~$1.38 million

The attacker couldn't have chosen a better time to attack.

When every DeFi protocol was worrying about their exposure to USDC, the attacker struck. 😤

But here's to hoping that this remains the biggest attack for the rest of the year.

Doodhwala’s heart can only suffer so much. 🥲

💰 Chaach and Charts: $15 for 1 transaction?!

Gas.

No, I’m not talking about what happens to you after bad paani poori. 🤢

I’m talking about Gas fees.

You know that thing you pay when processing a transaction on a blockchain.

I’m specifically talking about Ethereum’s gas fees which went 🚀 this weekend as everyone was:

• selling off $USDC

• buying up $USDT

• drinking $DOODH

Yup, the USDC depegging event saw Gas fees rise up to – 350 GWEI. That’s ~$15 per transaction based on the price of ETH. 🫢

THAT’S ALMOST 7X OF THE WEEKLY AVERGE GAS FEES.

The last time Gas fees were this high?

🌕 During the Terra Luna crash in May 2022 🌕

Chegg it 👇

🛠 Resourcewala: How to Study Crypto

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Do you feel like you're constantly playing catch-up and can't keep up with the latest developments? 🤔

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Here's what you'll learn:

• How to break down complex concepts into digestible pieces

• Tips for staying organized + top of your crypto studies

• How to balance learning with hands-on experience

Ready to take your crypto education to the next level?

Check out this 🧵 on how to study crypto more efficiently! 👇

🍼 Doodhshots: Nations Regulating Exchanges

• ⚖️ Kanoon Se Panga: Indian crime-fighting agencies are now requiring exchanges to report suspicious transactions are investigating for money laundering.

• 🇬🇧 Nat Allowed: NatWest Bank in the UK limits crypto exchange transactions to protect users from crypto-criminals.

• 🌕 Jane Jumps for Lunatics: US Justice Department investigates Jump Trading and Jane Street over potential TerraUSD (UST) bailout plan.

• 🔪 Contract Killer: EU approves Data Act mandating kill switches for smart contracts.

• 🍿 Animated NFTs: NounsDAO, a CC0 project, passes a proposal to create an animated movie with its NFTs.

🤣 Milky Meme Of The Day

If you want more doodh then, be sure to follow our Twitter, our LinkedIn, and our Instagram.

That’s all for today bhaiyo aur bheno! Naale Sigona! Aakash "Dahi Cheeni" Athawasya & Arvind "Doodh Peda" Krishna

Yo! Our legal and financial advisors (aka our good ol’ conscience) have asked us to add this boring disclaimer. None of what you read here is financial advice. We aren’t here to get you to buy or sell a crypto. We’re only here to tell you what’s up in crypto today and make you laugh. So, if you screwed up on a trade, that’s on you G. Stay safe in the markets.