Is Crypto Twitter headed to Threads?

Dear Bankless Nation,

Is Crypto Twitter going to make it? Or are we all going to ditch Elon for Zuck?

For our weekly recap, we dig into:

1. Crypto Threader?
2. Binance deals with exec departures
3. Bored Apes suffer volatility
4. Polygon Labs leader steps down
5. SEC goes after BarnBridge DAO

– Bankless team

📅 Weekly Recap

1. Crypto Threader?

For all of the talk of metaverses and Web3 platforms, Twitter is still very much the center of the crypto world. How much longer that might be the case was thrown into question this week after Meta’s successful launch of Threads – its own Twitter competitor.

The new app which is tied to the Instagram social graph arrives at perhaps the worst possible time for Elon Musk. His efforts to monetize the platform he reluctantly paid $44 billion for have been controversial with both his critics and supporters. He recently announced that the service would begin limiting the number of tweets that both free and paid subscribers could access, though it’s not really clear whether Musk still plans to do this.

At the time of writing, Threads had already amassed more than 70 million users, over just two days, a number that amounts to about 20% of Twitter’s total active users when Elon bought the company. Sure, not all of these users will stick around, but more will come and it’s already clear that this is massive threat to Twitter, enough that Musk has already sued Meta claiming that they are “cheating.”

Threads may have a clearer path to mainstream relevance, but convincing all of Crypto Twitter to move to it will be a much taller order. Yes, Bankless already has an account there, but the crypto culture that’s been developed on Twitter is deep and it’s likely that spirit will be tough – or impossible – to migrate.

In any case, Twitter getting some competition could be a good thing for users. So far, Elon has had little motivation to expand beyond monetizing functionality that had previously been free. But now, with a rising competitor for users to flee to, he’ll need to create a platform that can’t just rest on its laurels. With Threads already committing to decentralization, perhaps Musk will be pushed to double down on some of the decentralization efforts Twitter’s founder Jack Dorsey has supported.

All that said, Threads is still brand new so perhaps we’re all getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s see where it is next week.

2. Binance deals with exec departures

A report this week in Fortune alleged that a number of major executives at Binance had departed due to concerns over CZ’s handling of the investigations from various U.S. regulatory agencies.

The SEC filed suit against Binance last month with a laundry list of allegations. This comes after the CFTC filed a suit against Binance earlier this year. The company is reportedly also under investigation by the DOJ. That’s a lot of regulator attention!

Among the departing executives, the report notes, are General Counsel Han Ng, Chief Strategy Officer Patrick Hillmann and SVP for Compliance Steven Christie. CZ seemed to push back on the reasons given for the exits, highlighting “more FUD about some departures” in a recent tweet.

3. Bored Apes suffer volatility

While chatter around a potential Bitcoin spot ETF have been driving bullishness in the crypto space, the NFT world has been dealing with major volatility striking at some of its top collections.

The floor price of BAYC hit a two-year low this week, drifting to around 27 ETH – a sudden decline that also struck at other Yuga projects including Meebits and MAYC. While Bored Ape floors have recovered to over 34ETH at the time of writing, this is still an aggressive decline from the 69 ETH floor that the collection started 2023 with.

It’s not just BAYC, Nansen’s Blue-Chip-10 price index shows a 47% decline from the start of the year for top projects – with a 21% decline in June alone. The sudden price decline in a space already deep in the bear market vibes pushed some to point blame at Blur which critics argue has encouraged gamification of the market to unhealthy ends.

4. Polygon Labs leader steps down

In a sign of the deepening challenges facing the Polygon team, Polygon Labs President Ryan Wyatt announced this week that he was leaving the company. Assuming the top role at the startup will tellingly be the company’s Chief Legal Officer. Wyatt had come aboard the Polygon team after a long stint at Google leading their gaming efforts and has been responsible for much of Polygon’s success with building out partnerships.

Polygon recently was dealt a significant blow when its native token MATIC was designated by the SEC as an unregistered security. Polygon Labs has refuted this classification.

5. SEC goes after BarnBridge DAO

Team members of the BarnBridge DeFi protocol announced late this week that they were being investigated by the SEC alongside members associated with the protocol’s DAO.

Alongside this admission, the team’s counsel announced that in an effort to “reduce potential further legal liability,” work on any related products would stop immediately and “existing liquidity pools should be closed, and no more liquidity pools should be started.”

📺 Bankless Weekly Roll-Up

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