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The Premier League, one of the largest soccer organizations in the world, is reportedly having conversations with its teams about signing a multi-year deal with Sorare for digital collectibles.

The deal would include a multi-year contract for static images of players in the form of NFTs. If signed, it would total approximately $34.7 million per year and replace the Premier League’s initial deal with ConsenSys, which had been in the works — but not signed — earlier this year, Sky News first reported.

ConsenSys, the blockchain infrastructure provider of Infura and MetaMask, is thought to have tried to renegotiate a lower-priced contract with the Premier League after NFT valuations and volumes dipped this past year.

Sorare was said to have then offered a “more lucrative” contract than the revised ConsenSys proposal, as reported by Sky News.

The Premier League, the UK’s top-tier soccer organization with hundreds of millions of avid fans, also is reportedly in discussions with Dapper Labs, another digital collectibles company which started the NBA Top Shots platform.

Sorare is an NFT digital collectibles platform that recently partnered with the NBA as well as other sporting leagues. It recently raised $680 million and was valued at over $4 billion.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Facebook owner Meta’s shares sank by 24% amid a wide selloff that suggests investors are none too pleased with CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse strategy.

The share drop brought Meta’s total market capitalization below $265 billion. It exceeded $1 trillion last year.

Shares fell dramatically on the heels of Meta reporting that Reality Labs, its metaverse division, lost $3.7 billion during the third quarter. The division’s year-to-date losses total $9.4 billion, the company reported on Wednesday.

During an earnings call with analysts, Zuckerberg attempted to assure investors his strategy would pay dividends in the long term.

“Look, I get that a lot of people might disagree with this investment [in the metaverse], but from what I can tell, I think this is going to be a very important thing,” Zuckerberg said on the call. “I think it would be a mistake for us to not focus on any of these areas which I think are going to be fundamentally important to the future.”

Meta recently debuted its new $1,499 virtual reality headset the company hopes corporations will be interested in buying for employees in lieu of computers. Meta has formed partnerships with Microsoft, Accenture and Zoom.

Investors have publicly expressed their dismay and called on Zuckerberg to rein in spending on the metaverse, a business proposition many analysts don’t see becoming lucrative for several years. Others have questioned Zuckerberg’s focus on virtual reality.

Meanwhile, Meta’s apps business, which includes Facebook and Instagram, continues to be profitable.

Zuckerberg says his company’s metaverse strategy also includes augmented reality and neural interface technologies, but these are still in phases of research and development. 

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Another leader at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is urging for more regulatory power over crypto markets. 

Christy Goldsmith Romero, a CFTC commissioner, warned of increasing “contagion risk” in crypto markets in a speech in New York yesterday. 

“The vulnerabilities seen during this beginning of what some call the ‘crypto winter’ warn of growing intra-market risks, with parallel themes seen in 2008,” she said. Her comments referred to the financial crisis caused in part by opaque swaps markets, while pointing to calamitous market events like the collapse of stablecoin TerraUSD and private fund Three Arrows.

“Just as regulators could not see the true exposures or risk in 2008 due to unregulated companies and products, we cannot see that today with unregulated crypto markets,” Goldsmith Romero said.  

The commissioner noted that the crypto market today remains “relatively small” but foresaw growing links between crypto and tradfi increasing the risks posed to the overall financial system.

Goldsmith Romero’s remarks come amid a push by the CFTC to get more regulatory authority over cryptocurrency markets. Like Chairman Rostin Behnam’s last week, her recent comments noted conflicts of interest among crypto companies that “serve multiple functions that are separated into different entities in traditional finance. An exchange may also be a market maker, clearinghouse, lender, and/or custodian.”

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Fintech firm Revolut plans to roll out a “spend from crypto” feature on Nov. 1.

Customers will get 1% back “for a limited time” by paying with their Revolut cards using crypto, an email from the company said.

The cash back promotion is only available to users in the United Kingdom, according to company terms.

Revolut introduced 29 new tokens to its crypto offerings in September, including SOL, AVAX and shiba inu. The firm plans to add its own native token along with a non-custodial wallet. 

Last month, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) added Revolut to its cryptoasset register.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

The Celo Foundation has laid off its entire government relations team, The Block has learned. 

According to four crypto industry sources in Washington, D.C., Celo axed its government relations and lobbying wing on Oct. 26.

Representatives for Celo confirmed that Chris Hayes, who had led the firm’s government relations arm, no longer works for the firm but did not comment on broader layoffs.

“Unfortunately, there are financial challenges in the industry and Celo has decided to pull back from their policy engagement,” Hayes said in a text message. 

The firm spent $106,000 on its lobbying program in the second quarter of this year, according to Senate disclosures. The firm has yet to report its lobbying spending for the third quarter, although the reports were due last week. It did spend $50,000 on an outside lobbying contract with Cypress Advocacy.  

The size of the team directly affected is unknown. Celo was involved in crypto policy in Europe but may have been working with outside contractors there.

Hayes spoke on Celo’s behalf at Blockchain for Europe, a conference in Brussels this week, according to his LinkedIn account and was actually at the conference the day of the layoff. The Celo Foundation hired Hayes in March to set up the shop in Washington amid a broader government relations blitz from the crypto industry. 

The tide of government relations and lobbying spending from the crypto industry, which surged during the fight over the infrastructure bill last year, appears to be receding more broadly. 

With additional reporting by Stephanie Murray

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Quick Take

• In this bi-weekly series, we look into some of the most interesting data and developments across the Layer 2 blockchain landscape, from DeFi and bridges to network activity and funding.
• With days left before the mainnet launch of zkSync 2.0, there has been some scrutiny over some of the technical improvements that zkSync brings to the Ethereum ecosystem.
• The proof generation for zkSync is currently closed-sourced, which means that the sequencer for zkSync is centrally operated for now.
• In terms of adoption, zkSync has attracted a handful of applications that intend to deploy on the Solidity-friendly environment provided by zkSync 2.0’s zkEVM.
• zkSync has hinted at an eventual token, although the tokenomics, utility and distribution plan has yet to be communicated.

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members of The Block Research.
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Art Blocks founder Erick Calderon has announced a new generative art project — his first since the launch of the multi-million dollar collection called Chromie Squiggles. 

The new project, Friendship Bracelets, will be available to anyone who owns a piece on the Ethereum-powered Art Blocks platform within a specific time snapshot. Those eligible will be able to claim two mints. Then, if owners choose, the NFTs can be sold on the secondary market.

Calderon partnered with artist Alexis André (a.k.a. MacTuitui) to envision how strands of a childhood bracelet could be interconnected to represent digital artwork in the form of a physical object with meaning, but no inherent value. Illustrated instructions to create an IRL bracelet matching the holder’s NFT will accompany each mint.

Friendship Bracelet, by Art Blocks

Art Blocks says the drop, which is claimable from today, is meant to be seen as a token of appreciation to the creators, makers, builders and collectors who have contributed to the platform. It will be free — save for a transaction fee. The platform recommends those that receive the two NFTs give one away.

The company said that in the future it may release additional modified iterations of the project on a Layer 2 scaling solution, a move which may substantially increase the total supply of tokens related to the project, with the “intent of being a more accessible entry point to a larger audience.”

Airdrops such as this one are fairly standard fare among NFT collections and are a way of building community loyalty to a project. The creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club orchestrated something similar in the past, crediting Ape holders with NFT dog companions — the so-called Bored Ape Kennel Club — for free. The floor price for these canines on the secondary market was just under 6 ETH, or about $8,300, at the time of writing.

Amid a wider market rout, Chromie Squiggle NFT prices have held up relatively well in dollar terms. Prices peaked around mid-October last year, according to data from Dune Analytics. The squiggly lines garnered mainstream attention when a limited run of 10 was commissioned for sale by Sotheby’s auction house at the end of last year. 

Chart: The Block Research, data source: Dune Analytics (cat)

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Quick Take

• On October 27, 2022, Mastercard reported Q3’22 earnings 
• Mastercard currently trades at $317.57 per share in intra-day trading 
• This is a follow up piece discussing Mastercard’s crypto initiatives 
• Disclaimer: This is a market commentary research piece and includes opinionated views from our research team. Nothing contained in this piece constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer by The Block Research

This research piece is available exclusively to
members of The Block Research.
You can continue reading
this Research content on The Block Research.

Shares of bitcoin miner and hosting provider Core Scientific fell 75% on Thursday after the company announced that it may run out of cash by the end of the year and may explore options such as bankruptcy.

The company’s shares traded at $0.25 at 1:30 p.m. ET, down from $1.01 at market close on Wednesday.

“The company may seek alternative sources of equity or debt financing, delay capital expenditures or evaluate potential asset sales, and potentially could seek relief under the applicable bankruptcy or insolvency laws,” the company said in a document filed Thursday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “In the event of a bankruptcy proceeding or insolvency, or restructuring of our capital structure, holders of the company’s common stock could suffer a total loss of their investment.

The miner also announced that it would not be able to make payments due in late October and early November with respect to several of its equipment and other financings.

Core Scientific has been affected by a prolonged decline in the price of bitcoin, a rise in electricity costs and the increase in the global bitcoin network hash rate, the company said. On top of that, it has been in a legal battle with bankrupt Celsius Mining over what it claims are “outstanding amounts owed.”

The industry in general has faced those same struggles recently, with bitcoin mining hosting company Compute North filing for bankruptcy last month.

“Among possible alternatives, the company may explore liability management transactions, including exchanging its existing debt for equity or additional debt, which transactions may be dilutive to holders of the company’s common stock,” the company said.

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Investment firm Pantera Capital’s early-stage token fund has lost nearly three-quarters of its value this year amid a bloodbath in crypto markets. 

The fund is down 71% through the end of September, according to an investor presentation obtained by The Block. It charges a 3% management fee with a 30% performance fee. Pantera didn’t provide a comment when approached by The Block.

Pantera is one of the oldest investment firms in the crypto industry, having been founded in 2013. The early-stage token fund launched in 2017 with a strategy that provides investors exposure to tokens with liquidity horizons of one to three years, according to the document.

The news comes at a time when the majority of tokens and cryptocurrencies are down by 50% or more in the wake of a tricky macro environment with interest rates rising and surging inflation.

Pantera isn’t the only crypto fund experiencing a hit in this downturn. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Andreessen Horowitz’s flagship crypto fund fell by 40% in the first half of the year. The Journal said this decline is much larger than 10% to 20% drops reported by other venture firms.

Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is one of the largest players in crypto investing having raised a total of $7.6 billion to deploy into crypto and web3 startups.

Pantera’s CEO Dan Morehead is known for his strong views on the macroeconomic environment, which he explores in monthly investment letters. 

“I think we can decouple from the other risk assets and we will see a world, a year or two from now, where a lot of interest-rate-sensitive assets are lower than they are today and blockchain is much, much higher,” said Morehead in his October letter.

Pantera’s bullish long-term view

Even though Pantera’s token fund is in tough spot this year, it has still returned 372% to investors since its inception, according to the document. The fund had an even tougher year in 2018, when it fell 83% — before rebounding 562% in 2020 and 319% in 2021.

The fund is co-managed by Morehead, Pantera’s co-chief investment officer Joey Krug and Paul Veradittakit, a partner at Pantera. 

The firm currently oversees $4.5 billion in assets and runs three different fund strategies: the early-stage token strategy, a blockchain fund that is a venture fund that invests in equity and a liquid token strategy. The firm is also seeking to raise $1.25 billion for a second blockchain fund, according to a report from Bloomberg.

The first blockchain fund launched back in 2021 and targeted a $600 million raise. Earlier this year, Pantera announced it had secured more than $1 billion in commitments for the fund. 

At the time, Morehead told Bloomberg he was planning to close the second blockchain fund in May and was also looking to capitalize on the downturn by buying additional shares in existing portfolio companies. 

Pantera’s portfolio includes companies like Anchorage Digital, Amber Group, Coinbase, Flashbots and FTX. 

© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.