Hi there, 👋
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A mohawk, green clown eyes, and hot lipstick.
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VISA picking up a CryptoPunk is big news for this space.
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If nothing else, it was a brilliant marketing play.
They've probably 100x'ed their investment on the media they earned this week.

In other news:

• E.U. study: How startups succeed
• Domain investors flock to NFTs
• Digital scarcity
• Transparent ETF funds
• EtherRock records
• Truly private cloud storage

And more below.
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As always, thanks for being here.
Juliet.
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​P.S. Don't want to type? Send us a voice message!
​Hit any of the feedback links (in the email version) and tell us what you think of today's news. Thanks.
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The Future of NFTs

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​Why are domain investors flocking to NFTs?
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In this newsletter, we reported that domain investor Andy Booth and his brother, James, paid 400 ETH for Bored Ape #3749.
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Now, domain investor Andrew Miller has shared his reasons for finally entering the NFT market.
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Miller has been involved in $245 million worth of premium domain name sales on the internet.
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​He believes that domains are among the most valuable digital assets and are finally starting to mature.​
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While social status and FOMO may be good enough reasons for some to purchase a Bored Ape NFT, staying ahead of the curve is another.
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Miller states:
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​I believe we are not even in 1998 yet with NFTs. It's not even the first inning, it's 1995 in the domain world. And NFTs are moving faster than domain names did. NFT time is on a different clock since they are more liquid than domains.
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See what he says about his purchasing decision and the future of NFTs.
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(Thanks to Richard Patey for sharing the article with us).
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Cloud Cover

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​Using cloud storage that gives large corporations access to all of your data is akin to leaving your home unlocked when you go on vacation.​
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​Internxt has developed a decentralized infrastructure that it argues is both inherently more secure and more private than mainstream cloud-based apps (such as those offered by tech giants like Google).
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This is because files are encrypted and your data is stored in a highly decentralized way.
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All data is split into tiny shards which are then distributed across multiple storage locations.
Users of the network contribute storage space and are compensated for providing that capacity with - you guessed it - crypto.
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If Internxt was hacked, intruders wouldn't be able to access your data either.
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A free option is offered and paid plans start at €0.89 /month.
​See their privacy-focused solutions.
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We just spotted this deal on Appsumo.
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Crypto & NFT Updates

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📌 Earn on Your Crypto Holdings

​Okcoin has launched a rewards-based Earn feature for its cryptocurrency exchange. This enables people to use their web and mobile apps to make money on their cryptocurrency holdings. Full story.​
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📌 PayPal Launches Cryptocurrency Service

The U.S. online payments giant said Monday it would let British customers buy, hold and sell digital currencies, starting this week. It marks the first international expansion of PayPal's crypto product, which launched in the U.S. in October last year.
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📌 Rocking

On Monday, we covered the sale of an EtherRock that fetched $300K.
EtherRock continues to set new all-time highs following a record $836k sale.
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The $836k purchase was made after Tron founder, Justin Sun, also bought an EtherRock over the weekend for $611k.
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Following this latest sale, the new price floor for an EtherRock NFT has been raised to $2,012,348 (and will have changed again by the time you read this).
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Two weeks ago, the price floor was $$226,182.60.
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Sun was also the buyer of the Beeple piece ‘OCEAN FRONT‘, which sold for $6m. The proceeds were donated to charity.
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📌 One We Missed

Hackers have drained Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Liquid of $97 million worth of Ethereum and other digital coins.
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The company announced the compromise in a tweet posted late last Thursday, and said it was moving assets that were not affected into more secure "cold wallet" storage.
The company also suspended deposits and withdrawals.
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Liquid did not put a dollar figure on the amount, but blockchain analytics company Elliptic said its analysis estimates the losses at about $97 million.
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📌 More Changes at Digital Currency Company

Circle had claimed its stablecoin, USD Coin, was backed 1:1 by actual dollars in a bank account. In July, it was revealed this was no longer the case.
Now, Circle says it's changing the makeup of USD Coin's reserves once again, with just cash and U.S. Treasury bonds underpinning the stablecoin.
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📌 Bitcoin Buys

Information analytics agency MicroStrategy, Bitcoin's largest corporate investor, disclosed it bought roughly 3,907 Bitcoins for about $177 million between July 1 and August 23.
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CEO Michael Saylor tweeted the news:
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At almost 109,000 Bitcoin, MicroStrategy now possesses more than double that of any other public company.
It is understood Elon Musk’s Tesla is the second-largest with a holding close to 42,000.
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How Startups Succeed

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McKinsey studied Europe’s top 1,000 tech start-ups to learn how they succeed in the region’s fragmented value pool.

The answers lie in four distinct strategic plays.​
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Successful tech start-ups follow one of these distinct roads to success: network, scale, product, or deep tech.
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​McKinsey analyzed these businesses along 15 critical growth dimensions and variables such as the amount of time, funding, and revenues required to build a unicorn across each of those strategic plays.

Startups and scale-ups - and their investors - can use these findings to assess their own approach and identify quicker paths to success.

On scaling up, they note:
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​To achieve this early commercial success, outperforming scale start-ups invest more heavily in sales, marketing, and business-development roles...scale players typically focus less on product roles (28 percent) compared with about 40 percent for the other strategic plays.
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This is a reflection of the fact that success is generally achieved more through sales than through product differentiation.​
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Their post offers valuable information and lessons for others aspiring to similar heights.
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Sponsored by Smash Digital
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🦄 SEOs with Skin in the Game

​Smash Digital - a growth agency, filled to the brim with unicorn images and SEO memes. A team of SEOs with actual skin in the game, ranking their own portfolio of profitable businesses, and offering the exact same services to clients.
An agency with so much link juice you’ll need a mop and bucket to clean it all up.​
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​Check. Them. Out.
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For Designers by Designers

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​Design Junction is a one-stop resource library for designers and creatives.
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Their curated list includes illustrations, design systems, icons and accessibility tools.
If you have a great free resource to offer, then they take suggestions here.
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​The list is updated weekly and no signup is required to access.
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Digital Scarcity

NFTs captured international attention with the $69 million sale of Beeple’s digital artwork.
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Now, players behind the so-called metaverse are betting "digital scarcity" will create a whole new ecosystem of play and commerce.

Why are people paying so much?

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✅ Snippets to Send You on Your Way

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🔷 The growing ETF business: Capital Group is bucking the recent trend among fund companies migrating into the ETF space by going fully transparent with its suite of six actively managed strategies. This means that their holdings will be made public each day. The funds are expected to launch by the end of March 2022.
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🔷 What to ask domain buyers: Your high-value domain names may not have set pricing. Instead of asking interested parties to fill out a form to receive price details, ask them to provide this information. It may help you to maximize the value of your domain name sale.
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🔷 It's the autograph: If you thought Apple computers were expensive, you haven't seen what their manuals go for. Boston-based RR Auction sold an Apple II manual signed by Steve Jobs for a whopping $787,484.
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🔷 Finding startups with a moral compass: In their quest for the best bets and greatest impact, investors need to ensure they collaborate with startups that are doing things right from Day One. These are the four questions investors should ask before signing on the dotted line.
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🔷 Take a closer look at your values and priorities: Here is a list of key questions to ask yourself to best route your passions to a business that will bring you more visibility and respect than pain.
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🏊‍♂️ How fast can you swim?

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