Reading time 4m30s
GM to one and all! Welcome to Tokengraph, the newsletter that brings you all the must-know news in Web3 each week. You’re reading a weekly recap today, and boy, do we have some big stories to cover.
On today’s agenda:
FTX Lawyers Caught Up to Shaq
The Aftermath of ETH Shanghai Upgrade
Elon: AI Could Destroy Us
Cathie Wood: BTC and ETH = Gold
Canon to launch NFT Photo Marketplace
And more…
Shaquille O’Neal is as well known for his keen business sense as he is for his basketball career at this point — but it looks like he made a bad deal with FTX, one that he can’t outrun.
Lawyers in a class-action suit against celebrity endorsers of FTX have tried to serve Shaq 20 times in two different states. The judge says they can't serve him via DM.
https://t.co/Z31Db0bfBB— Jacob Silverman (@SilvermanJacob)
Apr 12, 2023
O’Neal has apparently been successfully avoiding lawyers from the Moskowitz Law Firm for months, somehow living his high-profile (and very public) professional life while dodging them.
You have been running from us for months & all other FTX celebrities have agreed to receive their complaints. Please have the courtesy & honor to simply allow our process servers tomorrow to deliver our legal complaint on your behalf, so you can defend your actions in this matter
— The Moskowitz Law Firm (@moskowitzesq)
Apr 14, 2023
But today, it’s been announced that the former pro basketball player was officially served his papers as a defendant in the class action suit against celebrities who promoted FTX.
The Moskowitz Law Firm even took to Twitter last week to try and catch Shaq’s attention there. It reminds us a bit of how the Winklevoss Twins called out Barry Silbert and Genesis Capital earlier this year on the app.
Shaq is over 7 feet tall, is on TV all the time & is a touring DJ.
But lawyers trying to serve him in an FTX lawsuit can’t find him. They’ve tried at least 20 times.
Wild crypto story - highlights include text threats, a chicken franchise & a desperate law firm tweeting at him.
— Stephanie Murray (@stephanie_murr)
Apr 15, 2023
Other celebs who are being sued include Stephen Curry, supermodel Gisele Bündchen, tennis pro Naomi Osaka, retired baseball superstar David “Big Papi” Ortiz, and Kevin O'Leary of Shark Tank.
Although we love Shaq and all his goofy celebrity shenanigans, we’re glad to see that he’s been served his papers and that the legal process can actually continue now.
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Vitalik Buterin’s brainchild Ethereum underwent a huge upgrade last week that enabled users to withdraw their staked ETH tokens (and the rewards they’ve earned by staking them). The result so far? Everything’s going smoothly, and ETH’s price has soared past $2,100.
🥳🎉 The Shapella Upgrade is complete. Congratulations to the @Ethereum community! ETH unstaking is now enabled on https://t.co/bCG11KNnW0. https://t.co/JcTxAVphGZ
— Coinbase (@coinbase)
Apr 12, 2023
This price reaction from Ethereum has shocked many analysts who believed that the opposite would happen — they were expecting a price decrease in the wake of the Shanghai upgrade. It looks like the completely successful and smooth update has increased investor confidence, though.
[email protected] says Ethereum's successful Shapella upgrade supported better than expected price action for ether, which could continue through the end of April. By @willcanny99
https://t.co/GdQHm1DaRk
— CoinDesk (@CoinDesk)
Apr 17, 2023
The Shapella upgrade gives us a new metric!
Deposit vs Withdrawal flows
Withdrawers currently beating depositors, with 62k net ETH withdrawn in the last 24hrs
But withdrawal volume is down only, while post-Shapella deposit volume has increased bigly 👀
Fun to watch! https://t.co/HNybeLSRgv
— DavidHoffman.bedrock 🏴🦇🔊🔴_🔴 (@TrustlessState)
Apr 14, 2023
Something of note for developers, spectators, and investors alike: the Shanghai upgrade has enabled a “Withdrawal vs Deposit” metric for the Ethereum network. This is going to be important moving forward, as it directly describes the dynamic between newly staked ETH and withdrawn ETH.
Right now, withdrawals are (understandably) larger than deposits, but deposits are increasing rapidly.
Hi Shapella 👋
Withdrawals have appeared! https://t.co/POqeZwkZJ4
— Etherscan (@etherscan)
Apr 12, 2023
We toast the Ethereum development team for their successful upgrade, which was only made possible by their previous ETH update that took the network from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake. Well done!
We already know that Elon Musk, co-founder of OpenAI (the company behind ChatGPT), has heavily criticized AI development over the past few years, citing the danger it could pose to humanity. But it turns out he’s developing his own AI company to rival OpenAI himself!
@mckaywrigley I saw it happening from well before GPT-1, which is why I tried to warn the public for years.
The only one on one meeting I ever had with Obama as President I used not to promote Tesla or SpaceX, but to encourage AI regulation.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk)
Apr 16, 2023
Regarding the possibility of a The-Matrix-like situation of societal destruction at the hands of AI, Musk has been quoted as saying “Anyone who thinks this risk is 0% is an idiot.”
@cb_doge Anyone who thinks this risk is 0% is an idiot
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk)
Apr 15, 2023
He even stated in a FOX interview that he sees AI’s destructive potential as even more dangerous than aircraft design mismanagement or production problems.
Musk and other industry leaders are currently calling for a halt to public AI chatbot development, signing an open letter that highlights the risks of unchecked continued AI chatbot training.
It remains to be seen whether this warning is heeded by AI development companies (including Musk’s new one) — but we’ll keep you updated either way.
The Merge is the era of Ethereum Upgrades that we’re living in right now. What’s the next era going to be?
A.The PurgeB. The Surge C. The ScourgeB. The Splurge
Scroll down to the bottom to see if you're right!
⚡ Lightning Round: Weekly Updates
Wood is referring to the two largest-market-cap cryptocurrencies as risk-off assets — at least based on their current behavior. BTC and ETH have served as somewhat of a safe haven for investors in the wake of banking collapses recently, performing very well in shaky times.
Camera giant Canon USA is diving into Web3 once again with Cadabra, their NFT photo marketplace on the Ethereum network. The exchange will offer photos from all genres and will also allow photographers to sell prints of their NFTs — which Canon will fill the orders for.
It’s been revealed that Do Kwon, the CEO of Terraform Labs that was on the run for months and was just recently arrested, actually paid South Korean law firm Kim & Chang $7M right before the Terra ecosystem collapsed last year. The implication here is that Kwon knew that the ecosystem was about to go down and that he was expecting serious legal problems to arise. Prosecutors are currently trying to work this information into the fraud case that’s been brought against Kwon.
❓ Trivia Answer
Answer: B.
The next set of upgrades will be called “The Surge,” and they’ll be focused on bringing rollup scaling to the Ethereum network to reach the goal of 100,000 transactions per second.
Web3 Resource of the Day
Wall Street Insider: Bitcoin To $10 Trillion Market Cap | Dan Tapiero | Video Podcast from Anthony Pompliano
Could Bitcoin do a 20x in market cap from where it sits currently, increasing in price to roughly $600,000 per BTC? Co-founder of 1RoundTable Partners & 10T Holdings Dan Tapiero thinks so. In this podcast episode from Pomp, Dan dives into the current macroeconomic stage of crypto as he sees it, breaking down what the Fed is (and isn’t) doing, problems within the banking industry, opportunities he’s looking at currently, and more. In the wake of the Shangai upgrade for Ethereum and BTC’s surge in price past $30,000, this podcast is the perfect resource right now for gaining some new perspective from an industry veteran.
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DISCLAIMER: This is not financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Do your own research.