Rug Radio Recap - June 25, 2023

gm fam! Remember the summer time vibes during high school or college when you had a couple months to just relax and have some freedom from the daily grind? Well, it looks like web3 caught that same energy.

From big players in the traditional finance industry taking notice of crypto to Azuki kicking off the summer with their event in Las Vegas, we might be seeing the beginning of a positive sentiment shift across the entire space.

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

• Rug Radio Updates

• ApeCoin DAO election

• TradFi’s renewed crypto interest

• Danny Cole brings The Creature to Manhattan

STUBS Claim

Did you claim your Stubs Mint Passes or are you holding onto a few?

This week’s featured artist is Apocalypse Art who created Stranger and Strangerman, two pieces that depict coarse ideas yet use color and themes outside of the usual dark imagery.

He has been making art for 30 years, starting with huge ambitions in the art world before becoming a Dad and having a family. He ended up continuing to create art on the side, inspired by his work and his view on how much culture affects society. The ideas in people's minds, their dogmas, their priorities are all things that inspire his art.

• Ready to claim? There are two options to claim this week. The banner version called Stranger and the glitch version called Strangerman.

• Need more mint passes? Grab a couple on Opensea

• Not familiar with Stubs? Check out our guide

Threadguy and Leap in Vegas

Azuki hosted their Follow The Rabbit event in Las Vegas this weekend, and we sent ThreadGuy and Leap to give us an inside look at Azuki’s flagship event🐇⛩️

Revolutionizing the creator economy with MetaMask Learn

NFTs are revolutionizing the creator economy.

Artists can experiment with creating immersive and interactive VR or AR experiences through digital galleries or worlds featuring their art. Creators can also take advantage of the programmability of the technology, such as token-gated access, to unlock exclusive benefits or access to digital and physical experiences for their community.

On top of all of that, anyone is able to sell their work directly to their audience without intermediaries taking a substantial portion of the revenue.

The potential of what this new era of technology can do for creators is virtually unlimited, and MetaMask Learn dives even deeper into this topic outlining how digital ownership is changing the game for creators worldwide.

ApeCoin DAO Election

The election for the ApeCoin DAO special council is heating up with the 2nd and final round of voting open until Wednesday. There are 5 candidates on the ballot, and only two will be elected to the council.

Here are the key things that you need to know:

• The five candidates are CaptainTrippy, Karma, Swickie, ThreadGuy, and Waabam

• The special council is tasked with providing overseeing the DAO and working with the community to fulfill the vision

• Anyone holding the ApeCoin governance token is able to vote with 1 $APE token = 1 vote

• The voting period is open until Wednesday, June 28 at 9pm ET on Snapshot

Why is this important? While not officially created or launched by Yuga Labs, they are a contributor to the DAO and the token is deeply integrated into their ecosystem. Additionally, the ecosystem as a whole is one of the most widely recognized names across both the web3 community as well as mainstream brands and individuals.

Throughout this week, a series of debates and interviews are set to take place that could significantly impact the outcome of the election. If you’re interested in learning more about the candidates and DAO, tune into GM Web3 on Tuesday at 10:30am ET where we’ll be hosting one of the debates!

TradFi’s Renewed Crypto Interest

In an interesting turn of events, several big players in the traditional finance world are making moves to offer crypto services to institutional clients. This comes just 2 weeks after the SEC sued native crypto heavyweights Coinbase and Binance for allegedly operating unregistered securities exchanges. These moves include…

• BlackRock’s iShares unit filing for a Bitcoin ETF

• Citadel, Fidelity, and Schwab launching the EDX crypto exchange

• Deutsche Bank filing for a digital asset custody license with CACEIS Bank in France gaining their registration

All of this has sparked both speculation and excitement. On one side, some believe all of these big players (re)entering the crypto market could be a sign of upcoming regulatory clarity around digital assets - something that has kept traditional firms on the sidelines. If that turns out to be the case, it’s possible we see increased liquidity flow into crypto markets, as well as a greater sense of legitimacy surrounding the industry.

While we’ve seen the markets react positively to this news, it’s important to note that most of these are just applications that still need to go through a highly scrutinized review process over the next several months. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

Danny Cole, founder of Creature World, brought a 12 foot tall yellow creature sculpture to The High Line in Manhattan.

Pudgy Penguins has announced a new initiative where owners of physical Pudgy products can create unboxing videos, and receive a soul-bound token.

Luxury car maker Mercedes is piloting an in-car app for displaying digital assets from crypto wallets.

Similar to ordinal inscriptions on Bitcoin, Ethscriptions bring the ability to inscribe on Ethereum.

Ethereum blockchain explorer, Etherscan, added an AI based tool to help anyone interpret the code of a smart contract.

Context

• NFT markets are still relatively stagnant, with the exception of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) who saw their floor drop below 40 ETH and sales in low 30 ETH range. Also, when we see the price of crypto rise, we generally see NFT volumes and prices decrease.

• Crypto rallied this past week with all of the news surrounding ETFs and TradFi getting back into providing crypto services, sparking speculation that some kind of positive crypto-friendly legislation is on the horizon.

• In the week ahead, there’s several key things to watch that could affect markets including continued Bitcoin ETF news, geopolitical tensions, and the US PCE number on Friday which is generally accepted as the fed’s “preferred gauge of inflation.”