Unchained - Unconfirmed: Axie Infinity's July Revenue Tops $200 Million. Here's How Filipinos Drove It - Ep.259

Episode Date: July 30, 2021

Leah Callon-Butler, director of Emfarsis, discusses her documentary, “Play-to-Earn: NFT Gaming in the Philippines,” and the real-world impact that crypto is having in the Philippines. Show highlights: how the Axie Infinity movement started in the Philippines how much money players can earn through Axie Infinity compared to normal wages in the Philippines how Filipino crypto exchanges are catering to Axie Infinity players to make it easier to cash out their earnings what percentage of Axie Infinity players live in the Philippines why the game is so popular in rural areas what about Axie Infinity is bringing in non-crypto native players why Axie Infinity now has high barriers to entry how players have created their own system for helping bring new users into Axie Infinity how Axie Infinity scholarships work what Leah thinks about Yield Guild Games’s relationship with Axie Infinity Thank you to our sponsors! Crypto.com: https://crypto.onelink.me/J9Lg/unchainedcardearnfeb2021  Oasis: https://oasisprotocol.org/  NEAR: https://near.org    Episode Links Leah Callon-Butler: https://twitter.com/leah_cb  Emfarsis: https://emfarsis.com/ Axie Infinity: Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo-BrASMHU4  Coverage https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/14/people-in-philippines-earn-cryptocurrency-playing-nft-video-game-axie-infinity.html https://venturebeat.com/2021/05/13/how-a-rural-filipino-community-is-earning-a-living-playing-an-nft-game/ https://hypebeast.com/2021/5/axie-infinity-nft-cryptocurrency-game-philippines-documentary https://www.esquiremag.ph/money/industry/axie-infinity-mobile-game-cryptocurrency-nft-a00289-20210521   Leah’s NFT/Axie Infinity writings: https://www.coindesk.com/the-metaverses-emerging-economics  https://www.coindesk.com/how-axie-infinity-creates-work-in-the-metaverse https://www.coindesk.com/nft-game-filipinos-covid  https://www.coindesk.com/artists-who-now-make-a-living-because-of-nfts https://www.coindesk.com/for-filipinos-axie-infinity-is-more-than-a-crypto-game https://www.coindesk.com/here-comes-the-virtual-real-estate-boom https://www.coindesk.com/vindicatio-nft-pioneer-looks-ahead  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, everyone. Welcome to Unconfirmed. The show that reveals how the marquey names in crypto are reacting to the week's top headlines and gets the insights keep on what they see on the horizon. I'm your host, Laura Shin, a journalist with over two decades of experience. I started covering crypto six years ago, and as a senior editor at Forbes was the first mainstream media reporter to cover cryptocurrency full-time. This is the July 30th, 2021 episode of Unconfirmed. My book, The Cryptopians, Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the making of the first big cryptocurrency, craze is available for pre-order on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and any of your favorite bookstores. Go to Bitley slash Cryptopians. That's b-it.l-l-Y-slash-R-Y-P-T-O, P-I-A-N-S. NIR is an open-source platform that accelerates the development of decentralized applications, overcoming high fees and slow speeds with its fast, scalable, low-cost, and climate-neutral blockchain protocol. Learn more at N-E-A-R-dot-O-R-G. The OASIS Network is a privacy-enabled blockchain platform for open finance and a new data economy. Start building your next idea on the OASIS network. The crypto.com app pays you up to 8.5% interest on your Bitcoin. Get $25 when you

download the crypto.com app with code Laura. The link is in the description. Today's guest is Leah Kalman-Bettler, director of MFARCIS and screenwriter of the documentary Play to Earn, NFT Gaming in the Philippines. Welcome, Leah. Hi, Laura. Thanks for having me. You made a documentary about Filipinos who are earning money playing Axi Infinity. What did you find in making the film? Yeah, so we launched this documentary in May 2021, but it was actually filmed in January, and the story goes back before that time. It originated from a coin desk article that I wrote in August 2020 about a community in a place called Cabanetuan City. It's a very provincial place in the Philippines. It's known for its rice fields and thousands of tripe drivers, which is kind of

like the Filipino equivalent of a taxi driver, except they drive a motorbike. And, you know, I got wind of this story of about 100 people on a street in this rural area that was playing this incredibly complex blockchain game amid the COVID-19 lockdowns. And the money that they earned from it, they were using to put food on the table. I thought it kind of sounded too good to be true, so I had to investigate. And it turned out to be very true. Wrote this story, published it on Coin Desk in August, and, you know, I've actually seen lots of really interesting trends about crypto adoption in the Philippines.

I've written about Libra and remittances, all sorts of stuff. But this Axi Infinity story really took off. And I think it was people in emerging economies that kind of share similar sorts of demographics in terms of what was happening in the Philippines amid the lockdowns. They were stuck at home. They had no income. They were struggling to support their families. And yet they had a mobile phone and an internet connection.

So, yeah, I wrote this story. It sort of started to take off. And it wasn't until December later that year. that I got a call from Gabby Deeson at Yield Guild Guild Games. And he said, you know, this story that you wrote, it's kind of really hit a nerve. What if we turned it into a video? And look, I've never made a documentary before,

but I was kind of thinking, oh, how hard could it be? Yeah, let's do that. So the whole point of the documentary was that we actually went out to Nueva Aseo, where these people live, tracked them down, visited them at their homes, learned their backstory, and we wanted to give them a platform to be able to share to the rest of the world

this amazing experience that they'd had with an acute blockchain game with digital pets. How did such a rural area stumble upon this game and why was it that one street? Yeah, so I think it's important to kind of understand the context of the Philippines. So in Farsis Consulting, we're really interested in Southeast Asia and how a lot of growth can come from here in terms of leapfrog innovation and new technologies. But in the Philippines, it's a really perfect environment for that sort of stuff because you've got a population that is English speaking, they're super tech savvy, they spend more time on social media than anyone else in the entire world.

And they love games. So I don't think it's any surprise that this population kind of gravitated toward this idea of a cute fun game that could make money. I guess it's such a take off during the lockdown through word of mouth, really, and through community network effects, which I guess a lot of people talk about in crypto in terms of, you know, educating each other and, you know, bringing each other along the journey. But I'd never really seen it, you know, in effect like this.

So, yeah, it was literally just friends and family helping each other learn how to play this game, learn how to earn these tokens and eventually cash out and turn it into food on the table. And so when you say that, what kind of money were they earning in terms of what they could earn through normal jobs? That's a really important question to kind of be contextualized in terms of the growth of the game, I think. So SLP, which is small love potion, the token that can be earned within the game, the price of it is super volatile. So, you know, earlier this year it was like one cent.

And recently it was spiking, you know, well over 20 cents. I think it even went over 30 cents at some point. So there's a huge spectrum there in terms of what people can earn. And early on in the days, too, there were very few caps in terms of how much SLP you could earn in the game. So you literally had people who were taking it in shifts, playing around the clock, kind of looking like bots on the system just to earn as much SLP. as possible because it was a better earning opportunity than what they had here in the Philippines on the ground. But in effect, so what I saw was that in the early days, this is like mid-2020,

people were earning sort of around 10,000 pesos a week if they were top players. That's sort of around 400 USD a month back then. I think a lot of people in Western economies might sort of think, oh, that's not really that much, like $400 a month. But over here, it's, well above minimum wage and often for a lot of people, a lot more than they were earning, even before they went into the lockdown. Oh, wow. Okay. So if they're earning more than they could with a regular job, that makes total sense. Why wouldn't you just play video game instead? So they earn this small love potion, or I think now it's called smooth love potion. Yeah. How did they then turn those game earnings into cash? So back then it was quite difficult.

You would need to swap your SLP for Ethereum on a decentralized exchange such as Uniswap. And then in the Philippines, there's actually a really sophisticated on an off-ramps network. So over here, if you want to buy Bitcoin, for example, you could actually go to a local 7-Eleven or your supermarket and deposit cash to be able to get crypto out. So that kind of facilitated the ability to be able to swap your SLP for, say, Ethereum, and then send it to another exchange which would provide this off-ramps ability. A lot of people in the early days were using coins.ph, which is a very well-known exchange. It's very popular with consumers and often a place that people go to first when they're new to crypto. But it's actually moved on from there. So we're seeing so much demand now for trade volume in terms of this token in the Philippines

that some exchanges are actually offering a direct SLP to Philippine Pezzo trading pair. So yeah, like it's insane. Like this in-game token is so in demand that you've got a central bank licensed exchanges in the Philippines that will do direct swap. Examples are so Bloom X, they do an OTC deal. they really know their customers. So they actually do it via Facebook messenger. Pretty much every Filipino is on Facebook. So that's a great option for them there. But just recently, finance P2P started doing a direct swap as well. So I think that's kind of a

reflection in terms of how much this is taking off here. And so if in the beginning it was just that one street and that small rural town, how big would you say Axi Infinity is in the Philippines now? So I do actually know the stats for that. So I recently checked in with Gio, who's the head of growth at Axi Infinity, to ask him exactly this, because I wanted to know how much it had grown since I wrote that very first article in August last year. What I didn't know was that back then, Axi had less than 500 daily active users. And today, it's well over half a million.

And we're not even one year later. Now, in terms of where they're coming from, they do have a global audience, but it's expected that at least sort of 50 to 60 percent of them are from the Philippines. So it certainly has a huge player base here. And I guess like in terms of impact, you know, this is kind of a segue, but if you look at something like El Salvador, which has just taken on Bitcoin in terms of legal tender, that originated from a rural community in El Salvador. Beach that was using Bitcoin and demonstrating its use case. So I guess this is where I get really excited about the power of rural communities to really kind of control these conversations and have huge impact in terms of decisions and actions that are taken at a very high level. But has it expanded out from the rural areas in the Philippines to cities as well? Or is it

still a rural phenomenon? Yeah, absolutely. I think it's really popular in, the rural areas, just because it does give people access to income generation that is very hard to come by in those areas, you know, most people who are in rural areas, they don't have a lot of options, like particularly in the fallout of the pandemic, which, you know, the Philippines are still very much struggling with. Most people have lost their jobs. Overseas, Filipino workers have been repatriated. And, you know, they come home to a place that didn't really have enough jobs or high enough wages before they left. So people are looking for better ways to be able to earn money. But that rhetoric, I think, is kind of exciting to anyone. I guess what I hear is that anyone who

hears what a fun game that I can make money off, they're kind of interested to learn more. And I guess, you know, I've got friends in Australia who are playing it and getting excited that they made 50 bucks off playing a game this week. So it definitely resonates well beyond just the Philippines in terms of provincial areas. All right. So we're going to discuss a little bit more some of the recent developments around AXA Infinity. But first, a quick word from the sponsors who make this show possible. Did you know nearly $338 million worth of the NFTs were sent last year?

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blockchain platform for open finance and a response. data economy. Combined with its high throughput and secure architecture, the Oasis Network is able to power private, scalable defy, revolutionizing open finance and expanding it beyond traders and early adopters to a mass market. Its unique privacy features can not only redefine defy, but also create a new type of digital asset called tokenized data that can enable users to take control of the data they generate and earn rewards for staking it with applications, creating the first ever responsible data economy. Back to my conversation with Leah Callan Butler. So we were talking about how Axi Infinity has grown in terms of its users.

Can you give me a sense in the Philippines what the demographics are of the groups that are playing? So obviously, as you said, it's pretty popular in the rural areas. But can you give me any other idea of who is playing? Yeah, I think this is probably one of the most interesting things about the play-to-earn movement in general, that it appears to be attracting a completely different customer segment or user base than what people would expect of both crypto and gaming. So you would have seen in the Play-to-Earn mini-documentary that there were two particular demographics that I think have really resonated with people.

Firstly, Lola and Lola, this adorable elderly couple. who, because they're in the high-risk category during the COVID-19 lockdowns, they were isolated, bored, without an income. They used to run a sorry-sari store, which is kind of like a convenience store in the Philippines, but they're everywhere. And, you know, they were used to making a fair living from that store, but while everyone was locked down, of course they weren't making anything. They learned about the game through neighbors, and they became completely addicted to it. What I heard from them was that they loved the idea that they could earn money from it, and that was great.

They used it to supplement things like buying medicines. They said, you know, we're old people. We have lots of medicines. But they also said that it was kind of this element of escapism. Like, you know, think about it. You're a 75-year-old man. You're stuck at home. You're missing your family.

You can't go to church like you used to every weekend. And you don't know when this nightmare is going to end. They actually told me that the lockdowns were worse than. and what they remembered going through in terms of the Marcos area in the Philippines. So it was really, really a tough time for them. But they found this game and it gave them this joy and delight and I guess something to go to each day, which the interesting thing was, I said, oh, so what other mobile games do you play?

And they were like, none, almost like that was a ridiculous question to us. Like, what do you mean? Other games? So I think, you know, that's one. Nobody expected to see an elderly couple playing a blockchain game. But then there's also other ones like Sabrina. She's a mother of two and she lost her job. She was working in a bar as her savings were dwindling.

She was wondering what to do. And she decided to use her last money in all the world to invest in three NFTs. At the time, I believe there was sort of around $5 to get started with a team. And when that's your last money in the world, that's a massive risk. But she earned the money back within a month and then started, actually making profits off that and was able to spend it on things like digital devices and an internet connection so that her kids could do homeschooling. So I think the interesting thing about this movement is that people are playing these games not for the same reasons

that they would go and pick up a traditional video game in a store and perhaps they weren't even part of that market at all before. So it's definitely attracting a totally new persona. And so at the same time, as you mentioned, Axi Infinity has become quite popular. And so the cost of getting started in the game has increased. So since it is still popular amongst this rural population, how have Filipinos that are getting started in the game managed to, you know, buy in? Yeah. So this, I kind of feel like, because we're here and in the thick of it, we hear of it all the time and I think it's normal, but I think the rest of the world hasn't really heard about this innovation yet, but there's a particular thing in Axi Infinity that allows you to

loan your AXI team to another person for a designated period of time. And the reason is because your crypto wallet is actually separate to the gaming account, whereas most NFT games are inextricably linked to the crypto wallet. So you're not going to give out your seed phrase to someone, but you would provide the Axi Infinity QR code to allow someone to log in and use your team for a short period of time. So what happened over here was that there was some sort of community OGs

that just loved the game, you know, and they were breeding in the same way that people would breed crypto kitties, they were breeding axes. And some people ended up with like hundreds, if not thousands of them just because they loved it. And that's a lot more NFTs

than they could realistically play in the game. So when they saw other people, who were like, well, I want to try, but I don't really want to spend any money up front. They would say, well, why don't you just loan one of my teams, see how you like it? And, you know, if you enjoy it, then we'll go from there. That was actually a really popular thing that people started doing. And I guess a lot of the people who were doing it, such as I'm sure you've heard of Gabby D's on from Yield Games, he was kind of doing it with his own personal collection.

And what he found was that after loaning his NFTs to other people, they would very quickly earn enough from the reward tokens within the game to be able to buy their own teams. So it was almost kind of like graduating from borrowing someone else's to becoming an owner of your own NFTs where you were either unable or unwilling in the first place. And that has become more formalized as we've gone along, I guess, particularly with the demand within the market, as people have found out about this game, everyone wants in.

And there's just not enough in-game assets to go around. So the idea of a scholarship emerged where people would loan or rent their in-game assets, and they split the earnings. So it's essentially, I guess, like an uncollateralized loan of an NFT asset that people can generate yield from. and, you know, they go from there. And what we've seen is a lot of people can actually improve their economic status from being able to access that opportunity. But if the community hadn't kind of come up with this new solution,

that is scholarships, they never would have been able to get into the game in the first place due to the high cost of the NFTs. And what is the split typically? The high cost of getting in. So, I mean, it's... No, the split between the, you know, know, Axi University or whoever is lending the NFTs out versus who's borrowing them? That is, it's a tricky question. There are different splits. So there's everything from,

like quite formalized player guilds like yield guild games. So their split is they provide 70% to the player, so they get the biggest cut. 20% goes to the community manager. And the community managers are people who, they recruit players. players, and then they kind of invest in educating them and getting them up to speed so they can actually play the game because there's a lot to learn. And then 10% goes back to yield Guild, and that's to cover things like the cost of managing the assets, transaction fees, stuff like that. And full disclosure, I work directly with YGG and they funded the mini documentary. But there are other scholarships as well, and everyone kind of has a different approach to it. And I guess this is

what's interesting. It's a market that is still developing and the business model is still kind of being sounded out. There's some criticisms of some models that they don't give enough back to the player. And, you know, honestly, in my opinion, that's a bit of a problem too, because there's just such high demand for scholarships right now. A lot of people are willing to take, you know, a not so great deal in terms of the earnings they can make from their scholarship just because they're desperate to get into the game. So it'll be good to see that mature a little bit and see the community kind of weed out some of the less than ideal scholarships, I think. Yeah, well, an interesting development this week was that Yield Guild Guild Games is original

decks offering, initial decks offering on Sushi Swaf's miso platform sold out in less than a minute, and it was bought up by 32 wallets. So I think perhaps some of those actually were wallet set represented a number of players, although I'm not entirely sure about that. But what's your sense of what happened there and how that kind of situation, if it really is just whales who bought those tokens, how that might affect the game? I think the best person to talk about that would be the founders of Yield Guild Guild. I work directly with them, but I just manage comm, so I'm not the perfect person. But in my independent opinion, I think it's important to kind of put it into perspective.

Yield Guild Guild really wanted to work with MISO, which is the sale platform by Sushi Swap, and they didn't have a cap on how much purchases could take in the public auction. So it did sell out in 31 seconds to 32 wallets, but it was only 2.5% of their total token supply. So it's quite a small amount, and I totally understand people's perspective on it. but in the coming weeks, I'd say watch it because they've got actually 45% of their token allocation earmarked for community rewards. So that's their goal to actually give back to the community. They'll be air dropping existing members of the Guild to reward them for their participation already.

And then also people who are joining now, they'll be providing sort of reward systems that they'll be able to earn tokens rather than buy them. So, look, I guess it's a bit of a different model than most people would go by. And I think the criticism at the moment is that they're not community focused. But I do think they have a North Star that they're headed toward. And this is definitely on track. But definitely watch out for the community airdrop and rewards programs. I think that's going to be much more interesting and is almost half of their token supply.

All right. Well, this has been such a fascinating conversation. I'm so glad that we were able to learn more about the real world impact of crypto on a pretty unlikely demographic. I think that's something that's often talked about, you know, helping people in developing countries or helping the underprivilege. And yet it rarely happens. So it was very fascinating learning about this case. Thank you so much. Thanks to taking an interest in what's happening over here, Laura.

All right. Don't forget. Next up is the weekly news recap. Stick around for this week in crypto. after this short break. With over 10 million users, Crypto.com is the easiest place to buy and sell over 90 cryptocurrencies. Grow your crypto with Crypto.com earn,

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description. Thanks for tuning in to this week's news recap. First headline, Enoswap Labs restricts certain tokens. Last Friday, Uniswap Labs decided to restrict access for over 100 tokens through its user interface. Delisted were a range of synthetic assets, tokenized stocks, mirror stocks, options, and derivatives. The company cited the, quote, evolving regulatory landscape in a its explanation of the cuts. Because Uniswap is a decentralized protocol, Uniswap Labs can only restrict tokens through its own interface. Users can still interact with the protocol through other portals. The distinction is significant. Uniswap the protocol is unaffected as it exists as a decentralized permissible smart contract running on Ethereum. Uniswap the app, however, is controlled by

Uniswap Labs, which is separate from the protocol, defining itself as a, quote, software development studio that contributes to the Uniswap protocol. Uniswap founder Hayden, Adams put it best on Twitter. Just a reminder, Uniswap protocol equals fully decentralized permissionless smart contracts on Ethereum. Uniswap interface equals open source, GPL, or general public license, codebase.app.uniswop.org equals Uniswap Labs' own domain that points to an IPFS hosted instance of the Uniswap interface. Notably, Uniswap Labs' announcement comes soon after Securities and Exchange Commission chair, Gary Gensler, hinted that digital assets backed by traditional securities could fall under U.S. securities law.

Next headline. A new infrastructure bill looks to raise $28 billion through crypto taxes. In the latest version of the bipartisan infrastructure plan in the U.S., policymakers have proposed to raise an additional $28 billion through crypto taxes. These funds would be funneled into a larger $550 billion investment into the country's transportation and infrastructure. As part of the bill, reporting rules would tighten, with U.S. businesses being obligated to report any transaction over $10,000 to the IRS.

Kristen Smith, executive director of the blockchain association, told CoinDesk, quote, we interpret this to mean software wallet developers, hardware wallet manufacturers, multi-sig service providers, liquidity providers, Dow token holders, and potentially even miners. In other regulatory news, Representative Don Byer introduced the Digital Asset Market Structure and Investor Protection Act on Thursday. The block reports that the bill, quote, seeks to delineate. the treatment of crypto assets under five securities acts, the Commodity Exchange Act and the Bank Secrecy Act, as well as Federal Reserve Treatment of Stable Coins and possible digital legal tender.

Next headline. Finance cuts leverage and non-KYC withdrawal limits. Finance is moving at light speed to address increasing regulatory scrutiny. The exchange revealed over the weekend that it has begun lowering its futures trading leverage limit to 20x. It previously had an infamous offering of 125x. CEO Changpeng Xiao, aka CZ, cited consumer protection in his explanation regarding the move. On Tuesday, the company announced a reduction in the withdrawal limit for the lowest tier of KYC customers, cutting it down from 2BTC down to 0.6 BTC. On Twitter, CZ explained the decision as a way to enhance finances, quote, KYC efforts to further its leadership in this area.

While Binance, the global exchange is working so hard to appear but inept, Binance U.S. is eyeing a public offering. Last Friday, CZ said, quote, our partner in the U.S. is looking at the potential IPO route. However, in an interview with Forbes, Binance U.S. CEO Brian Brooks set the timeline for an IPO at about 36 to 48 months from now. As for Binance itself, CZ noted that the exchange is not quite ready to go public, but that could change in the future. Another potential shift for Binance. It could be looking for a new CEO. CZ tweeted, I slash we would very much like to hire a strong compliance background CEO

to show our commitment to compliance, as this is the top priority of the organization. However, he did clarify that, quote, there are no immediate plans to replace him as CEO, adding in a somewhat contradictory manner, quote, I don't need to be CEO and I am not leaving. I will always find ways to contribute to the community behind the logo tattooed to my logo.

forearm. Next outline. Tether's early days could come back to bite it. The U.S. Department of Justice or DOJ is investigating whether Tether executives committed bank fraud, according to a report from Bloomberg. The charges focus on Tethers' early days when the company allegedly lied about its crypto nature when opening initial bank accounts. Per Bloomberg, three unnamed sources, quote, with direct knowledge of the matter, claim that federal prosecutors are examining, quote, whether Tether concealed from banks that transactions were linked to cryptocurrency. As of now, no criminal charges have been filed against Tether concerning the concealment of cryptocurrency transactions. However, Bloomberg reports that federal prosecutors have sent letters to

individuals at Tether, alerting them of the investigation. Such notices signal that senior DOJ officials could be making a decision soon on whether charges are warranted. In response, Tether published a statement which did not entirely deny the report, but indicated it was wrong. Quote, this article follows a pattern of repackaging stale claims as news. The continued efforts to discredit Tether will not change our determination to remain leaders in the community. Tether routinely has open dialogue with law enforcement agencies, including the U.S. Department of Justice, as part of our commitment to cooperation, transparency, and accountability. Next headline.

Stoner Kat's NFT drop led to Big Eath losses. Wednesdays, Stoner Katz NFT dropped resulted in the loss of 340,000. 4.6 Eth, or more than $750,000, due to a number of failed transactions combined with high gas fees, according to data from Dune Analytics. Produced by Mila Kunis, Stoner Cats is an adult animated series that can only be accessed via NFT. The cast is absolutely star-studded with Kunis, Ashton Coucher, Chris Rock, Seth MacFarlane, Jane Fonda, and Vitalik Boutarin starring as Digital Collectibles.

The 10,420 stoner cats each sold for 0.35 eph in just 35 minutes. Or excuse me, meow nits. It was undoubtedly at success. At publishing time, the project ranked fourth in weekly volume on OpenC despite only being dropped a few days ago. However, due to an error with the minting contract, many would-be collectors were left with nothing but lighter digital wallets. Any address that attempted to mint 20 NFTs, which is the max allowed per address, without, manually adjusting the gas limit in Metamask was left with burned ETH and no NFTs, as reported by the defiant. Per Etherskin, one user lost 5.8th ETH worth more than $13,000 at the time due to the error.

As of now, Stoner Katz has not announced any plans to rectify the situation. Next headline. Robin Hood goes public and I's crypto-staking solution. On Thursday afternoon, Robin Hood officially IPOed, selling 55 million shares. at $38 each, giving Robin Hood evaluation of $31.8 billion. At press time, Hood sits at $34.90 about 8% off its initial listing. While going public is a huge deal in traditional finance, Robin Hood also made headlines in the crypto world this week. On Sunday, DeCrypt reported that Robin Hood is looking to add crypto lending and staking to its

platform. At the company's roadshow ahead of its IPO, CFO Jason Warnick revealed that Robin Hood is, quote, making a lot of investments in things we know our customers want, such as wallets, lending, and staking. He added, quote, we think there's a big opportunity in front of us, and we look forward to delivering more products for customers. Warnock's comments led the blog to unearth a panel from an Ethereum focus conference held in Paris last week, where Uniswop Labs' said, Robin Hood has health talks with Uniswop Labs. In Shapp's words, one of the cool things we've actually been talking about with them, Robin Hood, is a way to use. Uniswap to automatically settle a trade, for example, right when it happens with the user.

Robin Hood has remained silent on the topic while Uniswap Labs has confusingly both confirmed and denied the rumors. The block reports that an inside source has confirmed the talks. Next headline. Amazon is hiring in crypto, but denies plan to accept crypto payments. Amazon is looking to hire a, quote, digital currency and blockchain product lead, according to a posting on its job board. The specifics of the job, which was first reported in Bloomberg are wide-ranging, with the commerce giant asking for someone with, quote, expertise in blockchain, distributed ledgers, CVDCs, and cryptocurrency. The product lead would be in charge of developing a roadmap for both Amazon and AWS's

foray into the world of digital currencies. Also this week, many anticipated an announcement from Amazon regarding the acceptance of cryptocurrency as payment. The rumors arose from a British newspaper report on Monday, which cited an inside source claiming that Amazon would accept Bitcoin payments by the end of the year. However, Amazon, in an email to CoinDesk, dashed those hopes, saying, quote, notwithstanding our interest in the space, the speculation that has ensued around our specific plans for cryptocurrencies is not true. Next headline. High profile backers fund Paxos's series D. On Thursday, Paxos announced a $300 million series D backed by Bank of America, Coinbase Ventures, FTX, and Founders Fund. Notably, Bank of America, the second biggest bank in the U.S., has now

shown interest in blockchain and crypto twice through Paxos, as the bank previously tried out Paxos's settlement system in March to clear stock trades. In related news, during its second quarter earnings call, Paxos's biggest client, PayPal, hinted at big plans for the payment company in the world of digital assets, specifically citing smart contracts and DFI. Time for FunBits. Goldman Saches Defi in air quotes, fund. On Monday, Goldman Sachs filed an application with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a defy ETF. Defy, as I'm sure most of you know, is short for decentralized finance, which apps like Uniswap, Curve, and Avey are pioneering in crypto. It appears that Goldman Sachs did not quite get the memo, while its filing was on the right track

with the name of its ETF, dubbed the Goldman Sachs Innovate Defy and Blockchain Equity ETF, the actual companies involved in the fund are a far cry from defy. The top three weightings of this defy ETF are allocated to one, Nokia, two, Facebook, three, alphabet. All right, that's it for fun bits. Thanks for tuning in to learn more about Leah Callan Butler and Axi Infinity. Be sure to check out the links in the show notes. Head's up, everyone. The Unchained newsletter has switched from a weekly news recap to a daily email.

Each morning, you'll get four to five quick headlines, a crypto meme or two, and a few recommended reads. You can find the link to sign up in my Twitter bio. Unconfirmed is produced by me, Laura Shin, without from Anthony Ewn, Mark Murdoch, and Daniel Ness. Thanks for listening.