Rug Radio Recap - April 23, 2023

gm fam! We’re (so) back with our weekly recaps after a little bit of post-NYC recovery, but we’re jumping right back in later this week with Consensus where Farokh, OSF, and Mando will be hosting GM Web3 LIVE on Thursday, April 27 from 5 - 5:45pm.

If you’re going to be in Austin, don’t forget to enter the raffle to win a ticket to our event on Friday night! We also have a few tickets available in the rewards store👀 

Here's what we've got in this week's recap...

• Rug Radio Updates: Tech roadmap, Consensus event, new DAO proposals, rewards program update

• $PEPE - a meme turned memecoin

• Bluesky - the new Twitter?

Tech Roadmap

In our most recent Town Hall, we presented our tech roadmap with 5 products that we plan to build throughout the rest of the year. Each of these platforms will be foundational to growing and scaling the entire ecosystem…

• Marketplace (Q2): Rug Radio branded marketplace with the features such as buying in ETH and $RUG as well as social tools

• Learn 2 Earn (Q2): Learning Management System with curated courses for educational and entertainment content

• DAO Management (Q2/Q3): A DAO Management platform that acts as a one stop shop for submitting proposals, discussion of proposals, and voting

• Creator Portal (Q2/Q3): Creator Portal for all of our creators to update their information, aggregate stats, and get access to all of our tools

• Core Content App (Q3/Q4): A platform that allows for discoverability and aggregation of ALL Rug Radio content

Rug Radio Vibes in Austin

In partnership with Metaversal, we’ll be hosting a Rug Radio holders only event during Consensus on Friday, April 28th at 8pm at The Speakeasy in Austin, TX.

There are 150 tickets available to Rug Radio holders - including holders of a Membership Pass, Genesis NFT, or Faces of Web3 PFP. If you’re gonna be a town, enter the raffle on Tokenproof for the opportunity to win a ticket!

New RugDAO Proposals

The RugDAO has 4 new proposals open for voting, with voting closing between 4:30pm - 5:50pm ET on Monday, April 24. The proposals up for vote include…

• Expanding $RDAO conversion access: Expand $RUG to $RDAO conversion to holders of Membership Passes and Cory Van Lew Faces of Web 3 PFPs.

• Incentivizing DAO participation: Allocate 180,000 $RUG tokens from the treasury to acquire 100 $RDAO tokens and distribute to community members of both Rug Radio and the broader web3 ecosystem.

• Enhancing Genesis NFT utility: Provide additional incentives for long term holders and collectors of Rug Radio Genesis NFTs.

• Small Grants Committee Creation: Establish a secondary, streamlined funding avenue to attract builders and DAO participants.

Rewards Program Updates

If you’re signed up for the Rewards Program, you’re probably already earning $RUG for listening to GM Web3 and completing bounties. Now, you can starting earning $RUG by tuning into shows by our Tier 4 creators which include:

• OriGensXYZ by Nikita Ci-Ka-Luk on Tuesday’s at 9am ET

• Growth Mindset Moment by Ron Jordan on Tuesday’s at 8:30pm ET

• MLC Podcast by Mid Life Crysis on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s at 9pm ET

• Artist Journal by pocobelli on Wednesday’s at 9:30am ET

• Asia Web3 Mfers by Pukecast on Thursday’s at 10pm ET

• Web3 Media Frens by MintyFreshVibes on Saturday’s at 2pm ET

VeeFriends announced a collaboration with Snoop Dogg for his new song “Please Take a Step Back”, which will feature GaryVee himself.

Nike unveiled it’s first airdrop on it’s .SWOOSH platform, Our Force 1, as a tribute to the company’s Air Force 1 sneakers.

Ethereum Name Service (ENS) partnered with Moonpay to allow ENS names to be purchased with a credit or debit card.

Tornado Cash developer, Alexey Pertsev, who was arrested 9 months ago over money laundering allegations, was released pending his trial.

Degenz announced Degenz Code, a revamped version of the Degenz ecosystem which will feature embedded codes that can be redeemed for experiences.

Context

• NFT volumes across nearly every collection have been on a downward trend, with active OpenSea users hitting the lowest levels since July of 2021.

• After rallying during the week of NFT NYC, and the successful Ethereum Shanghai upgrade, crypto returned back to pre-NYC levels as a result of the combination of liquidations and continued macro-economic and regulatory concerns.

• In the week ahead, we get a few key economic reports such as US PCE and Q1 2023 US GDP, but all eyes are on the FOMC meeting on May 2 and 3 where another 25 bps (.25%) rate hike is expected.

P.S. we’re trying out a new format with our newsletter, so let us know what you think!