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Ethereum mining revenue outperformed that of Bitcoin for the seventh consecutive month in November, according to The Block Research.

Last month, Bitcoin miners earned $1.69 billion, a 2% decrease month-over-month. Ethereum miners conversely saw revenue of $1.99 billion — an increase of 11.8% compared to October — and overall earned 1.18 times the revenue of Bitcoin miners in November, in dollar terms.

To see how NFTs, spot volumes, stablecoins and other crypto stats fairs in last month, check out The Block Research’s “November by the numbers” breakdown. 

© 2021 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 biggest crossover crypto story of the past few weeks is probably ConstitutionDAO – a ragtag group of crypto believers who raised more than $40 million in ETH to purchase an original copy of the U.S. constitution at auction.

Much has been made of the ways in which the group failed. They didn’t actually buy the constitution; their organizational structure spiraled into chaos; and they bungled the refund mechanism, leaving thousands of contributors in the lurch. But what they did accomplish is almost as staggering as the extent of their failures: ConstitutionDAO got tens of thousands of addresses to donate $40 million over the course of about a week, without a marketing team or dedicated growth director.

This article is excerpted from The Node, CoinDesk’s daily roundup of the most pivotal stories in blockchain and crypto news. You can subscribe to get the full newsletter here.

Some of that is owed to the broader phenomenon of meme-based populism – the same energy that galvanized Reddit’s day traders to pump GameStop stock in January. It’s the thrill of collective progress, with an ideological twist in the form of an identifiable enemy: “Banks are bad.”

But the massive raise is also a testament to the fast and furious nature of crypto itself. Kickstarter, one of the most recognized crowdfunding platforms, doesn’t actually take money out of your bank account until a project is fully funded. And in the U.S., Kickstarter operates through the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s legal carve-outs for regulated crowdfunds, which incorporate certain consumer protections – there’s all sorts of things a project can’t do. If a project runs off with your money, or doesn’t actually build what they plan to build, it can be held liable.

Not so with crypto crowdfunds, or at least not yet. With ConstitutionDAO, the strategy was to raise the money first and figure out the logistics after the fact. Donations came with zero guarantees beyond a set of tokens, apportioned pro rata according to what you put in.

That’s also the logic behind ConstitutionDAO’s copycats. Spice DAO (formerly known as Dune DAO), which now counts the musician Grimes among its members, raised $11 million for a copy of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “Dune” storyboards. But it did so only after its initial failure to meet the requisite $4 million high bid for the manuscript – the new, multi-part raise was an attempt to reimburse the one group member who purchased the manuscript personally.

The major incentive is that if things don’t work out, you’ve still got your tokens, which could potentially be worth something on the secondary market. $PEOPLE, the token for ConstitutionDAO, has a market cap of $271 million on the strength of donations worth far less. It was trading at around $0.16 per token late last month. $SPICE tokens have so far had less success, but they’re certainly trading.

The whiplash nature of the crypto market is uniquely suited to these sorts of impulsive, communal gestures. It’s the logic of “aping in,” the frisson of excitement that comes from risking it all, with an added ideological component. And it doesn’t hurt that the hype around “Web 3.0″ – that increasingly nebulous buzzword – is a shiny hook for wealthy investors to latch onto.

See also: Money for Everything: A Future Where Every Inch of Culture Is Monetized

Of course, this isn’t really a new phenomenon. The crypto-backed publishing platform Mirror, which began as an alternative to Substack, has evolved into a tool for crowdfunding crypto projects through non-fungible tokens and token distribution models in the vein of ConstitutionDAO. Early adopters have used it to crowdfund art projects, essays, music collectives and other amorphous crypto-powered endeavors.

With all these projects, there’s an implicit sense that you’re not owed anything. It hinges on trust: Where donating to a Kickstarter is an expression of goodwill, putting money in a crypto crowdfund is like helping bootstrap an early-stage company.

The recent crowdfunding gold rush is playing off that gambler’s ethos. Sure, you might lose it all. But isn’t that the point?

Web 3 infrastructure company Mysten Labs has raised $36 million in a Series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). The startup was founded by veterans of Facebook’s crypto unit and will soon launch a non-fungible token (NFT) platform.

“There’s significant demand for more efficient and safe smart contract developer tooling, and Mysten has the technology and expertise to make major improvements across multiple chains. Allowing developers to focus on perfecting their user experience, without tackling the complexities of lower-level blockchain integrations, is key to enticing more Web 2 talent to start building Web 3 applications,” Arianna Simpson, a general partner at a16z, wrote in a post announcing the funding.

Mysten was founded by veterans of Novi Research, the crypto research and development division of Facebook, now known as Meta. Mysten CEO Evan Cheng led Novi and helped develop the Diem blockchain and Move programming language.

The startup is working with existing networks to integrate Mysten technology and creating open protocols based on Mysten-designed components. The scalability-focused protocol Narwhal, for example, is in development to deploy on the Celo and Sommelier networks. As noted above, Mysten is also launching a next-generation NFT platform

“The new blockchain is built with a unique design the current ecosystem has not seen. Apart from the massive scalability, it has a new programming model that’s perfectly suited for NFTs. It enables dynamic NFTs which are composable and can change over time – leveling up, new powers,” Cheng tweeted.

A16z has become one of the most noted investors in crypto venture capital. Over the summer, the firm raked in $2.2 billion for its third crypto fund. Chris Dixon, a general partner at the firm, is a vocal supporter of Web 3 projects.

Financial regulators in Japan are reportedly planning to seek limits on who can issue stablecoins in the country.

According to Nikkei, citing sources familiar with the matter, the Financial Services Agency wants to withhold such activities for banks and wire services. The agency is said to be planning to propose legislation to affect this change sometime next year.

If so, it would constitute an aggressive form of stablecoin regulation, coming as governments around the world move forward with varying approaches to regulating this particular corner of the crypto space. Broadly, stablecoins are cryptocurrencies pegged or linked in some way to government-issued currencies like the U.S. dollar.

Per Nikkei, companies that interact with stablecoins, including wallet-makers, may also be subject to FSA oversight. “They will also be required to meet obligations under Japan’s law on preventing transfers of criminal proceeds, including verifying user identities and reporting suspicious transactions,” Nikkei’s report continued.

© 2021 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.

In its December 6 “Strategy on Countering Corruption,” the White House highlighted areas for improvement in curbing global corruption and illicit financing.

Among anti-money laundering deficiencies including real estate markets and offshore tax havens, the Biden administration cited digital asset usage. 

“Advances in digital technology have dramatically improved the efficiency, convenience, and reach of digital alternatives to cash, and accelerated the usage of and commercial trading in digital assets across the world,” the report said. “At the same time, digital assets have been used in support of a variety of illicit activities, including proliferation financing, ransomware attacks, human and narcotics trafficking, fraud, corruption, and sanctions evasion.”

However, the report did not identify specific steps forward. Instead, the report said that the administration will “continue to review the risk posed by digital assets.”

The overall report focuses on many of the areas that the administration, particularly the Treasury under Janet Yellen, has identified as major areas of concern for illicit funding. Both due to increased attention on global corruption’s dependence on the U.S. financial system, and the administration’s desire to expand its tax base in order to finance its agenda, the Biden team is on the alert for perceived leaks. 

Crypto has appeared on the administration’s list of perceived leaks since its first months. The IRS asked for increased funding to expand its blockchain analytics capacity back in June, which ended up influencing the contentious tax reporting language in the infrastructure bill. 

© 2021 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.

Short-seller Boatman Capital has published a new report on what it describes as ‘serious governance failures’ at London-listed crypto miner Argo Blockchain.

The report, which comes several months after Boatman’s initial attack on Argo, focuses on the extent to which shareholders have been diluted by the company’s capital raising.

“Argo has diluted shareholders by 52% so far this year with further dilution likely given potential capex [capital expenditure] requirements of $1.5-2 billion for the Texas project,” stated Boatman in the report, adding that Argo has also raised money by issuing bonds at “eye-watering interest rates.”

Argo’s current market capitalization stands at around £500 million (roughly $660 million). It was worth more than double that in February of this year after a sudden spike in its share price.

Boatman bases its dilution claims on publicly available information that suggests that the number of Argo shares in circulation has risen from 307,905,000 at the start of the year to 468,082,335 today.

Boatman’s first report on Argo focused on the company’s $17.5 million purchase of a plot of land in Texas. Boatman concluded that Argo had paid more than 100 times the value of the land, but Argo’s CEO Peter Wall defended the move, calling it “a very solid deal” and a “project acquisition.”

The $1.5-2 billion in potential build-out costs for the Texas facility came to light in November when Argo was forced to disclose inside information that had mistakenly been published on Twitter by a fund manager who met with Argo executives.

A spokesperson for Argo Blockchain declined to comment on the latest Boatman report but pointed to videos posted on YouTube last week in which Wall fielded questions about the business.

Wall said he doesn’t believe that there will be delays with the Texas facility, which is scheduled to be up and running in March, and confirmed that construction costs would likely top $1 billion in total. With Argo now listed on Nasdaq, Wall said the focus is entirely on execution and mining as much bitcoin as possible.

Frenzied fundraising

Argo has been busy since Boatman’s first report was published in August. In September, the company raised roughly $128 million (before deducting underwriting costs) through an American Depositary Shares offering on the Nasdaq Global Select Market in the United States. Argo’s shares have traded on the main market of the London Stock Exchange since 2018.

The firm has also taken on debt. In September, Argo expanded a bitcoin-backed loan facility provided by Galaxy Digital from $25 million to $45 million. A few months later, the company announced that it had secured another $40 million through the issuance of bonds with an 8.75% coupon. In its latest report, Boatman states that the 8.75% interest rate places the bond “firmly in ‘junk’ territory” and points out that the proceeds fell short of the $57.5 million target.

“The bond market has given its verdict on Argo Blockchain and it does not look good: even with a high interest rate as enticement, Argo could only raise two-thirds of its target amount,” the report states.

The latest Boatman report also drew attention to equity investments that Argo has made in other crypto businesses — such as Pluto and GPUone — and to the short terms served by several of the company’s board members. Colleen Sullivan, former CEO of crypto trading firm CMT Digital, resigned after three months as a non-executive director at Argo, after taking a job at Brevan Howard that precluded her from holding board positions elsewhere.

“Given the litany of problems outlined above, we believe it is essential for Argo to bring in a strong chairman and directors who will stick around for more than a few months,” the report concluded.

In the Q&A videos posted last week, Wall said Argo is “in the process of looking for a new chairman” but would not put a timeframe on the search.

© 2021 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.

Brian Roberts, the former chief financial officer (CFO) at ride-sharing startup Lyft, has joined OpenSea as CFO.

According to Bloomberg on Monday, Roberts expressed optimism in OpenSea’s prospects — likening the company’s potential to that of eBay in the mid-90s.

OpenSea, the largest non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace according to TheBlock’s Data Dashboard, has recently fielded investment offers from several potential backers at a $10 billion valuation.

The proposed investment round could see the company raise around $1 billion from interested backers.

Commenting on the possibility of raising more capital, Roberts stated that the company could use the funds to pursue useful partnerships and joint ventures. According to Roberts, OpenSea’s growing profitability could put a possible public listing on the agenda.

“When you have a company growing as fast as this one, you’d be foolish not to think about it going public. It  would be well-received in the public market given its growth,” Roberts told Bloomberg.

The platform became the first NFT marketplace to surpass $1 billion in monthly trading volume back in August on the back of surging interest in digital collectibles.

© 2021 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.

Joseph Delong, CTO of decentralized exchange SushiSwap, has said he will leave the project unless the core team is given more autonomy and increased compensation. This comes amid a spate of infighting related to previous departures.

“I am going to ship Trident, and if you do not give us the autonomy to continue operations, the capability to form leadership, and increase compensation across the board I will leave,” he tweeted on Sunday. Trident refers to a new type of DEX that SushiSwap is working on.

To understand what led to this warning requires a look at how SushiSwap’s leadership has evolved over the last year.

The backstory

SushiSwap is a decentralized exchange (DEX) that was originally forked from Uniswap. It was known for using a vampire attack to try to tempt Uniswap’s user base to switch to it instead. It did so by incentivizing new users with token rewards.

In September 2020, SushiSwap hit notoriety when one of its founders, Chef Nomi, took funds intended for the project’s development team and sold them for ether (ETH), sparking a sell-off. He later returned the $14 million and was apologetic. But this led to a temporary shift in control of the project to other well-known individuals like FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, before ultimately landing in the hands of an individual known as 0xMaki. 

One year later, 0xMaki announced his departure. He said the project had taken a toll on him and that he planned to relax a bit. He was wondering about writing a book on what happened at SushiSwap from the inside. He also said he would remain an advisor to the project. 

Near the end of his post, he said, “I’ve accepted this decision and am at peace mentally.”

But it appears that it was a decision he was forced to make. A leaked screenshot from a SushiSwap telegram group seems to show Delong asking whether the project should ask Maki to leave, with 91% of the 11 respondents in favor of the move. Furthermore, a now-deleted post on the SushiSwap forum alleged that 0xMaki was fired. 

“With the $SUSHI price already down anyway, time for a little thread about the shenanigans behind the scenes at Sushi. @0xMaki was kicked out. Most of the good devs have left. Seems like greed sadly has taken over from community,” tweeted BoringCrypto, a former non-core SushiSwap developer. 

BoringCrypto named three other developers that they believed had also left: 0xKeno, LevX and Mudit Gupta. 0xKeno has left the project, according to his Twitter bio, while LevX appears to now be working on an NFT project. Mudit Gupta, for his part, said he left the core team but remains an advisor.

The ultimatum

Following these public allegations, Delong wrote a tweet thread to try to answer what he described as “absurd defamation.”

Delong said it was wrong that Gupta left due to his leadership, saying that it took him four and a half months to find a developer of his quality.

The CTO did acknowledge, however, that some former team members were not a fan of his. “Most of them were asked to leave on a basis of poor performance or inability to collaborate with the team which is the case with BoringCrypto,” he said. 

Delong fired more hits at BoringCrypto, claiming the developer had built products at SushiSwap only to sell them to his other crypto project, known as Magic Internet Money.

Ultimately, Delong said that if the community did not back the current team, he would leave. 

“I will peacefully transfer all the accounts and go and build something equally as successful and you can find someone else to bully,” he added.

Delong further claimed that he wasn’t well compensated, at $300,000 for a year’s work. “That may seem like a lot but I took a pay cut leaving Dapper Labs to come work on Sushi because it seemed exciting,” he said. He added that the SushiSwap core team had few sushi (SUSHI) tokens between them.

To prove his point, Delong proposed to SushiSwap’s governance system that all of the core team — barring himself — should be compensated with a one-off payment of 200,000 SUSHI ($964,000) from the project’s treasury. The tokens would have no vesting or lock up periods, so members could sell immediately if they wished. Among the 19 individuals listed, the amount handed out would total $18.3 million.

At present, 68% of the 79 voters are against the proposal. 

“This was a test to show less than 1% of the issuance going to the core team is controversial. You failed [by the way],” Delong said.

An official response

On December 5, the SushiSwap team made an official statement about the current mudslinging. The statement said that a former member known as AG — once SushiSwap’s Asia lead — was dismissed on the basis of unprofessional behavior and that they were behind many of these recent tweets (such as those alleging 0xMaki was fired). 

The statement acknowledged the difficulties of operating a project through a decentralized structure, particularly when it comes to accountability and transparency.

“We agree and admit that there were mistakes made,” said the statement. “Going forward, we are committed to involve the community in larger decisions, and create more transparency with the community.”

For more breaking stories like this, make sure to follow The Block on Twitter.

© 2021 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.

Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and non-fungible token (NFT) gaming outfit Animoca Brands have partnered to launch a $200 million fund. It will be geared towards early-stage backing of blockchain gaming startups, according to an announcement on Monday.

Both companies will invest $100 million each in the investment program that will target short-listed developers building blockchain-based games on the BSC network. For BSC, the investment is coming from its $1 billion accelerator Growth Program launched in October.

Monday’s announcement is yet another example of the growing interest in blockchain games and NFTs under the emerging “GameFi” umbrella. Animoca Brands has been ubiquitous in the space with the company involved in several recent fundraises for blockchain gaming startups.

In November alone, Animoca participated in multimillion-dollar funding rounds for the likes of Upland, Roll, Avocado Guild, and The Sandbox.

© 2021 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.

Stacked, an SEC-registered crypto robo-advisor, has raised $35 million in a Series A funding round. 

Alameda Research and Mirana Ventures co-led the round, with Fidelity International Strategic Ventures, DRW Venture Capital, Alumni Ventures, and Jump Capital also participating.

With fresh capital at hand, Chicago-based Stacked plans to grow its current team of 40 people to over 100 in the next year and go fully mobile within the next six months, said the firm.

Stacked is currently a web-based robo-advisor that allows users to automate their crypto investing experience through pre-built portfolios called “stacks.” The firm says it has automated over $10 billion worth of transactions for tens of thousands of new investors in 2021. 

Stacked also allows users to connect to multiple crypto exchange accounts and manage their portfolio in one place. The firm says over $100 million in user funds are connected to its portfolio management platform, and that it aims to have more than $1 billion in assets under management (AUM) in 2022.  

Stacked has been an SEC-registered investment advisor since June of this year. “We registered with the SEC so that we could truly provide the easiest and safest way to have risk-appropriate investment exposure to crypto, in just a few minutes, with no prior experience,” said Stephen Beavis, co-founder and COO of Stacked, in a statement.

Stacked was founded in 2019 and launched its platform in April last year. The Series A round brings the firm’s total funding to about $40 million. It raised a $1 million seed round in September last year.

© 2021 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.