gm! It's been another eventful week in Web3 and we're here to recap the top stories...

• After a month of sideways price action, crypto saw a strong breakout on Tuesday with ETH ending the week up 25%

• Reddit onboards millions, Azuki's golden skateboards, Chief Twit - Elon takes over Twitter

• Friday's Town Hall - We've got the latest updates about what we've been up to as well as what's next for Rug Radio!

Market Summary

Crypto Markets

After more than a month of sideways trading, Crypto rallied on Tuesday as a result of a short squeeze and over $1B USD in liquidations, in addition to relatively positive economic data.

• BTC: $20,865 (+9%)

• ETH: $1,630 (+25%)

• SOL: $33 (+19%)

• DOGE: $0.13 (+116%)

NFT Marketplace Volumes (7D)

• OpenSea: 41,530 ETH ($61,648,092 USD)

• Magic Eden: 503,938 SOL (est. $15,600,000 USD)

• Foundation: 311 ETH ($282,408 USD)

• SuperRare: $722,505 USD

The Week Ahead

This week, we get some key economic news that has the potential to move markets

• On Wednesday, we get the outcome of the FOMC meeting where a 75 bps (.75%) interest rate hike is expected.

• On Friday, we get the non-farm payrolls report, an indicator of the strength of the economy and how the Federal Reserve might act on monetary policy such as future interest rate hikes.

Stories of the Week

Reddit Onboards Millions into NFTs

In July, Reddit launched collectible avatars based on Snoo, the Reddit mascot, that holders could use as their Reddit avatars. These collectible avatars are actually NFTs on the Polygon blockchain that could be purchased with a credit card meaning that Reddit silently onboarded 3 million people into NFTs.

Azuki's $2.5M Golden Skateboard Auction

Azuki generated nearly $2.5M USD in sales from their Proof of Skate golden skateboard auction with each custom designed skateboard plated in 24-karat gold and weighing 45 lbs (20 kg).

Each skateboard comes with an embedded chip that, when scanned with a phone, links the skateboard to a digital token that verifies ownership and authenticity via the PBT standard.

Chief Twit - Elon takes over Twitter

Elon made a comedic entrance at Twitter HQ carrying a sink quite literally replicating the "Let that sink in" meme in addition to changing his bio to “Chief Twit”. We also got a deeper look into why he bought twitter in his message to advertisers stating "I did it to try to help humanity."

There are several reasons why this is important:

• Twitter is already the primary app for Web3/NFT/Crypto users, but has many pain points such as bots and functional issues which Elon vows to fix.

• Elon has even talked about Twitter crypto payments hinting at Dogecoin being an option causing DOGE to rise to levels not seen since April.

• Recent text message leaks also show that Elon has thought about making a decentralized social media app.

Our very own Melina recaps all of this and more in 60 seconds!

Snippets

LooksRare announced that they would be changing their royalty structure

Galaxy Digital released a report showing $1.8B USD in royalties has been paid out to creators

Twitter is developing a crypto wallet and testing NFT Tweet Tiles

Apple clarified its stance on NFTs within it’s app store

UK Lawmakers voted to recognize crypto as regulated financial instruments

Rug Radio Updates

Team & Business Updates

• On Friday, we had our biweekly Town Hall where we shared tons of exciting updates with new content, creators, team members, updates with our DAO proposals, and more!

• Check out the recording on Twitter or read through the notes on Mirror.

RugDAO Updates

• A suite of proposals are going live next week which includes the DAO Operational council, a fundamental piece of our governance framework that will allow us to start accepting and actioning proposals.

• To be eligible to vote, you need to swap your $RUG for at least one (1) $RDAO on the Syndicate claim site before the proposal goes live on Snapshot on Monday afternoon.

NFTs or Digital Collectibles?