The Fight of our Web3 Lives✊
The war on crypto heats up. Plus, TFM is seeking a new co-host, and NBA Con is just weeks away.
What’s up TFM Nation, happy weekend (you earned it!).
I would not usually write about this topic in the newsletter since we largely focus on sports, gaming, and culture - but the topic at hand is much larger than it seems and will impact our space for years to come (if not, forever).
I’m talking of course about the SEC (Securities and Exchanges Committee) and its war on crypto.
In the last two weeks, the SEC has:
Sued Coinbase, one of the world’s largest exchanges.
Attempted to freeze Binance’s assets, another one of the world’s largest exchanges.
Declared various alt tokens as securities.
And a litany of other anti-crypto moves that signal it’s intention to further destroy blockchain’s reputation. You can read the full story here.
Among the tokens declared securities: Flow, Polygon, Solana, Algorand, and Chilliz.
If the SEC were to win these lawsuits, the result would be catastrophic for crypto. Potential results:
It’s likely that Binance and Coinbase would leave North America all together, or even worse - be force to fold operations.
It would mark the closure of the primary consumer on-ramps, as in the way that people convert regular money to crypto and back.
It would signal that the American government is regulating crypto harshly, and hence drive tons of innovation out of the country.
Heck, it could even spell disaster for the NFT projects we hold so dear.
So even though our mind space might be focused on the NBA Draft, Summer League, NFL season, and all other fun summer sports (golf, tennis, cycling), make no mistake:
This is the fight of our lives in web3.
And there’s no saying how or when it will end.
But hey - at least we Mark Cuban in our corner, right?
Now let’s get on to everything that happened this week, outside of this impending disaster.
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Here is what’s on tap:
🎁 Trip to UFC X in Vegas | 30 seconds
Our friends at UFC Strike are giving away an all-expenses paid trip to Las Vegas for UFC X, which takes place the first week of July. Click here to enter!
🎼 Free Vitalik Song NFT | 30 seconds
Another hit on Sound.xyz, this one is in partnership with Optimism and features a super weird fan-made song about Ethereum’s founder, Vitalik Buterin.
🏳️🌈 Candy Digital Pride NFT | 30 seconds
Continuing their tradition of dropping free NFTs, Candy has rolled a pride month celebration token which you can claim here.
😱 A New Co-Host at The First Mint
No, not really.
But we do need a guest co-host for the first two weeks of July, and we are inviting all interested candidates to apply (info in the tweet below).
For our long-time fans, you know we’ve always experimented with different formats for co-hosts, and this will top them all.
Stay tuned in the coming week for our special selection process.
🏆 Top Shot Drops Finals Packs
NBA Top Shot released not one, but two packs yesterday, as they try to hurry up and wrap up their Series 4 roadmap.
The first was the Legendary NBA Finals set, a tradition at TS where each NFT is minted to /75 and features players from both finals teams.
As of this writing, Christian Braun led the set at $785 - although Nikola Jokic is the reward (so not yet listed), with the challenge running through to next week
And the second pack released was a Hustle & Show set, featuring plays from earlier in the season and continuing a set that has gone on since Series 2.
The packs were available in exchange for 15x trade tickets (rather than actual cash).
🫂 Meet Up with Team Hold at NBA Con
Sadly, we will not be in Las Vegas next month for “NBA Con”, which is an NBA conference built around Summer League.
But our pals at Team Hold will be there, and if you’re planning on attending the Con part I highly recommend you hit up TH’s live event!
So much great stuff this week!
Both the NBA and NHL crowned brand new champions.
And naturally, the highlights and memes were on points.
Thinking ahead to next NBA season - although everyone is excited for the boyish-looking, string bean feeling #1 overall pick Victor Wenbanyama, I can’t help but notice how much the potential #2 pick Scoot Henderson already looks and acts like a full grown man.
**This is not financial advice. Nothing in this newsletter, podcast, or publication should be considered financial or trading advice of any kind. Please do your own thorough research and make your own trading decisions. This is not advice.”
About The First Mint
A web3 sports community. Collectibles, NFTs, and Metaverse.
Tweets and Newsletters are not endorsements.
Another great pod this week! I so agree with the F1 take, I got really into it few yrs back from Netflix and still watch it but it’s pretty boring this year and Max has no competition really.